REESE  LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


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UN!  VERS  IT 


GENERAL    ANDREW   JACKSON. 
FROM  THE  PAINTING  BY  EARL  IN  THE  POSSESSION  OF  COLONEL  ANDREW  JACKSON. 


JOHN   C.  CALHOUN 

The  Great  Statesman  in  the  Prime  of  Life.     From  a  Portrait  at 

Clemson  College,  South  Carolina 


CORRESPONDENCE 


BETWEEN 


GEN.  ANDREW  JACKSON  AND  JOHN  C.  CALHOUN. 


PRESIDENT  AND  VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  THE  U.   STATES, 


oar  the  subject  or 


THE  COURSE  OF  THE    LATTER,  IN  THE    DELIBERATIONS    OF  THE  CABINET  OF 
MR.   MONROE,  ON  THE   OCCURRENCES 


IX   THE 


SEMINOLE   WAR. 


WASHINGTON. 
WIINTED  BY  DUFF   GREEN. 

1831. 


fy 


OF 


THE 


4» 


*  .      Or 


official  action.  All  com- 
•  being  folded  and  briefed, 
3rring  to  purely  depart- 
ure laid  before  the  Pres- 
sing at  8:30,  and  his 
as  to  their  answer  or 
of  a  purely  personal  char- 
it  would  reserve  for  per- 

etiquette  in   those    days 

to  accept  social  invita- 
of  the  duty  of  the  Presi- 
i  Lane,  and  Mr.  Henry  to 
ions  so  as  to  avoid  giving 

It  was  a  heavy  tax  on  the 
h  to  be  up  in  winter  a  large 

and  then  be  ready  to  be- 
lt by  8:30  next  morning. 


TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


I  come  before  you  as  my  constituents,  to  give  an  account  of  my  conduct 
m  an  important  political  transaction,  which  has  been  called  in  question,  and 
so  erroneously  represented,  that  neither  justice  to  myself  nor  respect  for 
you  will  permit  me  any  longer  to  remain  silent;  I  allude  to  my  course, 
in  the  deliberations  of  the  cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe,  on  the  Seminole  ques- 
tion. I  know  not  how  I  can  place  more  fully  before  you  all  the  facts 
and  circumstances  of  the  case,  than  by  putting  you  in  possession  of  the 
correspondence  between  General  Jackson  and  myself,  which  will  show 
the  difference  between  the  views  that  we  have  respectively  taken,  and 
by  what  means,  and  through  whose  agency,  this  long  gone-by  affair  has 
been  revived. 

I  have  not  taken  this  step,  strictly  defensive  as  it  is,  without  mature  de- 
liberation, and  a  calm  and  careful  estimate  of  all  the  obligations  under 
which  I  act.  That  there  are  strong  reasons  against  it,  I  feel  and  ac- 
knowledge; but  I  also  feel  the  most  thorough  conviction  that  the  sa- 
cred obligation  to  vindicate  my  character,  impeached,  as  it  has  been,  in 
one  of  the  most  important  incidents  of  my  life,  and  to  prove  myself  not 
unworthy  of  the  high  station  to  which  you  have  elevated  me,  far  outweigh 
all  other  considerations.  Should  my  vindication  have  any  political  or  per- 
sonal bearing,  I  can  only  say  that  it  will  not  be  because  I  have  either  willed 
or  desired  it.  It  is  my  intention  simply  to  place  my  own  conduct  in  its 
proper  light,  and  not  to  assault  others.  Nor  ought  I  to  be  held  responsible 
should  any  such  consequence  follow;  as  I  am  free  from  all  agency  in  resusci- 
tating this  old  subject,  or  bringing  it  to  the  knowledge  of  the  public.  Pre- 
vious to  my  arrival  here,  I  had  confined  the  knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
he  correspondence  to  a  few  confidential  friends,  who  were  politically  at- 
tached both  to  General  Jackson  and  myself;  not  that  I  had  any  thing  to  ap- 
prehend from  its  disclosure,  but  because  I  was  unwilling  to  increase  the  ex 
isting  excitement  in  the  present  highly  critical  state  of  our  public  affairs. 
But  when  I  arrived  here,  late  in  December,  I  found  my  caution  had  been  of 
no  avail,  and  that  the  correspondence  was  a  subject  of  conversation  in  every 
circle,  and  soon  became  a  topic  of  free  comment  in  most  of  the  public  jour- 
nals. The  accounts  of  the  affair,  as  is  usually  the  case  on  such  occasions, 
were,  for  the  most  part,  grossly  distorted,  and  were,  in  many  instances,  high- 
ly injurious  to  my  character.  Still  I  deemed  it  my  duty  to  take  no  hasty 
step,  being  determined  to  afford  time  for  justice  to  be  done  me  without 
appeal  to  you;  and,  if  it  should  be,  to  remain  silent,  as  my  only  object  was  the 
vindication  of  my  conduct  and  character.  Believing  that  further  delay  would 
be  useless,  I  can  see  no  adequate  motive  to  postpone,  any  longer,  the  submis- 
sion of  all  the  facts  of  the  case  to  your  deliberate  and  final  decision. 

I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  trying  position  in  which  I  am  placed — standing 
unsustained,  except  by  the  force  of  truth  and  justice;  yet  I  cannot  but  look 
with  confidence  to  your  decision.     The  question  presented   for  your  con- 


203859. 


fiideration  is  not  that  of  a  controversy  of  two  individuals,  between  whom 
you  are  to  decide:  viewed  in  that  light,  it  would  bear  the  aspect  of  a  mere 
personal  difference,  involving  no  principle,  and  unworthy  of  your  notices 
but,  regarded  in  a  different  light,  as  involving  the  character  of  an  officer, 
occupying  by  your  suffrage  a  distinguished  official  station,  whose  conduct 
in  an  interesting  public  transaction  had  been  impeached,  it  assumes  a  far 
more  important  bearing,  and  presents  a  question  of  deep  import  for  your 
consideration.  The  most  sacred  of  all  political  relations  is  that  between 
the  representative  and  the  constituent.  When  your  suffrage  places  an  in- 
dividual in  a  high  official  station,  a  most  solemn  obligation  is  imposed  on 
you  and  him,  on  the  faithful  discharge  of  which  the  existence  of  our  free 
and  happy  institutions  mainly  depends;  on  him,  so  to  act  as  to  merit  your 
confidence,  and  on  you,  not  to  withdraw  that  confidence  without  just  cause. 
It  is  under  a  profound  regard  for  this  mutual  and  sacred  obligation  that  I 
submit  the  whole  affair  to  your  determination,  conscious  that  in  this,  as  well 
as  every  other  public  transaction  of  my  life,  I  have  been  actuated  by  a 
solemn  sense  of  duty  to  you,  uninfluenced  by  fear,  favor,  or  affection.  I 
cannot  but  look  forward  to  your  entire  approbation. 

I  owe  it  to  myself  to  state,  that  1  come  before  you  under  circumstances 
very  painful  to  me,  and  a  reluctance  which  nothing  but  a  sense  of  duty  to 
you  and  myself  could  overcome.  Among  these  circumstances,  is  the  ne- 
cessity of  being  instrumental  in  disclosing,  in  any  degree,  what  I  deem  so 
highly  confidential  as  the  proceedings  of  the  cabinet,  and  for  which  I  feel 
myself  justified  only  by  absolute  necessity.  Acting  under  this  impression, 
I  have  not  felt  myself  at  liberty  to  go,  even  in  self  defence,  beyond  strict 
necessity,  and  have,  accordingly,  carefully  avoided  speaking  of  the  course 
of  my  associates  in  the  administration,  and  even  of  my  own,  beyond  what 
appeared  to  be  indispensable.  I  have  not  put  even  Mr.  Crawford's  state- 
ment of  his  course  in  the  cabinet  at  issue,  except  only  incidentally,  as  bear- 
ing on  his  statement  of  mine.  It  is  no  concern  of  mine,  except  in  this  in- 
cidental way,  what  representation  he  may  choose  to  give  of  his  course,  as 
to  this  subject,  now  or  formerly,  or  whether  his  representation  be  correct 
or  erroneous. 

Before  I  conclude  these  prefatory  observations,  I  deem  it  proper  to  make 
a  few  additional   remarks,   as   to  the  commencement  and  motive  of  this 


movement  against  me. 


The  origin  goes  far  back,  beyond  the  date  of  the  present  correspondence, 
and  had  for  its  object,  not  the  advantage  of  General  Jackson,  but  my  politi- 
cal destruction,  with  motives  which  I  leave  you  to  interpret.  The  enmity 
of  Mr.  Crawford  to  mey  growing  out  of  political  controversies  long  since 
passed,  afforded  a  ready  and  powerful  instrument  by  which  to  operate;  and 
it  was  early  directed  against  me,  with  the  view  of  placing  General  Jackson 
and  myself  in  our  present  relations.  With  that  motive,  in  the  midst  of  the 
severe  political  struggle  which  ended  in  elevating  him  to  the  presidential 
chair,  and  in  which  I  took  a  part  so  early  and  decided  in  his  favor,  a  corre- 
spondence was  opened  at  Nashville,  unknown  to,  and  unsuspected  by  me,  in 
December,  1827,  which  commenced  that  chain  of  artful  operations,  that 
has  terminated  by  involving  General  Jackson  and  myself  in  the  present  cor- 
respondence. A  copy  of  the  letter  which  opened  this  operation  has  been 
placed  in  my  possession.  It  was  written  by  Mr.  Crawford  to  Alfred  Balch, 
Esq.  of  Nashville^  and  is  dated  the  14th  December,  1827.  That  the  nature 
and  objects  of  the  operations  against  me  may  be  fully  understood  by  you. 


I  hereto  annex  the  copy  ot  Mr.  Crawford's  letter  to  Mr.  Baleh,  and  a  copy 
of  a  letter  from  the  Honorable  Wilson  Lumpkin,  a  representative  m  Con- 
gress from  the  State  of  Georgia,  to  me,  dated  the  27th  January,  1S29,  in 
which  it  was  enclosed,  with  an  extract  from  the  letter  of  the  Honorable 
Daniel  Newnan,  member  of  Congress  elect  from  the  same  State.  I  submit 
them  without  comment. 

The  movement  thus  commenced  did  not  terminate  with  this  letter.  It 
was  followed  by  other  attacks  from  the  same  and  other  quarters,  some  of 
which  are  indicated  in  the  correspondence  now  laid  before  you. 

It  may  be  proper  to  state,  that  I  remained  ignorant  and  unsuspicious  of 
these  secret  movements  against  me,  till  the  spring  of  1828,  when  vague  ru- 
mors reached  me  that  some  attempts  were  making  at  Nashville  to  injure 
me;  but  I  treated  them  with  silent  neglect,  relying  confidently  for  protec  j 
tion  on  the  friendly  relation  which  had  so  long  existed  between  General 
Jackson  and  myself,  and  the  uniform  and  decided  course  which  I  had  taken 
in  his  favor,  in  the  political  struggle  then  pending.  My  support  of  him  rest- 
ed on  a  principle  that  I  believe  to  be  fundamental  in  our  political  system, 
and  the  hope  that  his  deep  rooted  popularity  would  afford  the  most  effec- 
tual means  of  arresting  the  course  of  events,  which,  I  could  not  but  foresee, 
if  not  arrested,  would  bring  the  great  interests  of  the  country  into  a  deep 
and  dangerous  conflict. 

JOHN  C.  CALHOUN. 


No.  1. 

Copy  of  a  letter  from  Hon.  Wilson  LmnpJein,  enclosing  extract  of  a 
letter  from  General  D.  Newnan  to  him,  covering  copy  of  William 
H.    Crawford 's  letter  to  Alfred  Batch,  Esq.  of  NaskAlle,  Tennessee. 

Washington,  21th  January,  1829. 

Dear  Sir:  I  herewith  enclose  you  the  copy  of  a  letter  received  from  my 
iriend  General  Daniel  Newnan,  in  whom  1  have  great  confidence.  I  also 
give  you  an  extract  from  my  friend's  letter. 

The  great  confidence  and  friendship  which  T  have  long  entertained,  and 
still  entertain,  for  General  Jackson,  as  well  as  yourself,  induce  me  to 
take  the  liberty  of  making  this  communication  to  you.  I  am  confident  the 
best  interest  of  our  common  country  requires,  not  only  the  harmonious  and 
patriotic  union  of  the  two  first  officers  of  the  Government,  but  of  every 
patriotic  citizen  of  the  whole  country,  to  frown  indignantly  upon  all  in- 
triguers, managers,  political  jugglers,  and  selfish  politicians,  of  every 
description,  who  are  disposed  to  divide  and  conquer. 

I  feel  the  more  at  liberty  and  authorized  to  make  this  communication, 
because  I  know,  of  my  own  knowledge,  you  and  your  friends  are  misre- 
presented upon  this  subject.  However,  General  Jackson,  himself,  must  see 
and  know  the  object  of  these  shallow  efforts. 

I  do  not  know  one  conspicuous  friend  of  yours,  but  what  has  constantly, 
zealously,  and  uniformly  supported  General  Jackson,  from  the  day  that 
Pennsylvania  declared  in  his  favor  to  the  present  time.  How,  then,  can  it 
be  possible  that  General   Jackson  can  suspect  the   friendship,   carreiancT.. 


(i 

or  sincerity  of  you  or  your  friends?  No;  he  cannot — he  will  "not — he  does 
not.     I  have  quite  too  much  confidence  in  the  General  to  believe  such  idle 

tales.  . 

Nevertheless,  it  is  proper  for  you  and  him  both  to  be  apprized  of  the 
machinations  of  the  mischievous. 

You  are  at  liberty  to  use  this  communication  in  any  way  you  please. 

With  respect  and  esteem, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

WILSON  LUMPKIN. 
Hon.  J.  C.  Calhoun. 


No.  2. 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  the  Hon.  Daniel  Newnan  to  the  Hon.  Wilson 
Lumpkin,  dated  near  Nashville,  Tennessee,  Sth  January,  1829,  en- 
closing copy  of  a  letter  of  W.  H.  Crawford  to  Alfred  Batch. 

"  W.  H.  C.  has  done  Mr.  Calhoun  a  great  deal  of  injury,  as  well  by  his 
private  machinations  as  his  extensive  correspondence.  In  addition  to  the 
letter  which  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Balch,  a  copy  of  which  I  now  enclose  you, 
(and  which  has  been  seen  by  General  Jackson,)  he,  a  short  time  since,  wrote 
a  letter  to  G.  W.  Campbell,  proposing  that  Tennessee  should  vote  for  a  third 
person  for  the  Vice  Presidency,  and  requested  Mr.  Campbell  to  show  the 
letter  to  General  Jackson. 

"  I  hope  Mr.  Calhoun  will  take  the  earliest  opportunity  of  seeing  General 
J.,  and  putting  all  things  straight;  fori  cannot  believe  for  one  moment  the  al- 
legations of  W.  H.  C." 


No.  3. 
Copy  of  a  letter  from  William  H.   Crawford  to  Alfred  Balch,  Esq. 

Woodlawn,  I4lh  December,  1S27. 
Mr  dear  Sir:  By  the  last  mail  I  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  a  letter 
from  you.  If  I  understand  your  letter,  you  appear  to  think  a  public  ex- 
pression of  my  opinion  on  the  approaching  election  to  be  proper.  I  cannot 
think  a  measure  of  this  nature  necessary  or  proper.  In  other  words,  it  ap- 
pears to  me  highly  improper,  and  could  hardly  fail  to  stamp  the  charge  of 
intolerable  arrogance  upon  me  in  indelible  characters.  But  few  men  can 
ever  expect  to  arrive  at  that  height  that  would  justify  a  step  of  that  kind, 
much  less  an  individual  who  lives  in  the  most  absolute  retirement,  and  who 
has  no  ambition  to  emerge  from  it.  I  am  perfectly  reconciled  to  my  situa- 
tion, and  would  not  willingly  exchange  it  with  Mr.  Adams.  But  my 
opinions  upon  the  next  presidential  election  are  generally  known.  When 
Mr.  Van  Buren  and  Mr.  Cambreleng  made  me  a  visit  last  April,  I  autho- 
rized them  upon  every  proper  occasion  to  make  those  opinions  known. 
The  vote  of  the  State  of  Georgia  will,  as  certainly  as  that  of  Tennessee,  be 


given  to  General  Jackson,  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Adams.  The  only  difficulty 
that  this  State  has  upon  that  subject,  is  that,  if  Jackson  should  be  elected,  Cal- 
houn will  come  into  power.     I  confess  I  am  not  apprehensive  of  such  a  re* 

suit.     For  « writes  to  me,   "  Jackson  ought  to  know,  and,  if 

he  does  not,  he  shall  know,  that,  at  the  Calhoun  caucus  in  Columbia,  the 
term  "Military  Chieftain"  was  bandied  about  more  flippantly  than  by  H. 
Clay,  and  that  the  family  friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun  were  most  active  in  giving 
it  currency;"  and  I  know  personally  that  Mr.  Calhoun  favored  Mr.  Adams' 
pretensions  until  Mr.  Clay  declared  for  him.*  He  well  knew  that  Clay 
would  not  have  declared  for  Adams,  without  it  was  well  understood  that  he, 
Calhoun,  was  to  be  put  down  if  Adams's  influence  could  effect  it.  If  he  was 
not  friendly  to  his  election,  why  did  he  suffer  his  paper  to  be  purchased  up 
by  Adams's  printer,  without  making  some  stipulation  in  favor  of  Jackson? 
If  you  can  ascertain  thsqlCalhQunjgill  not  be  benefitted  by  Jackson's  election, 
you  will  do  him  a  benefit  by  communicating  the  information  to  me.  Make 
what  use  you  please  of  this  letter,  and  show  it  to  whom  you  please. 

I  am,  dear  Sir,  your  friend 

And  most  obedient  servant, 

WM.  H.  CRAWFORD. 
Alfred  Balch,  Esq. 

*fl  true  and  exact  copy.     [Noted  in  the  handwriting  of  Gen.  Newnan.] 


•  Mr.  Crawford's  assertion,  that  he  knew  personally  what  he  here  affirms,  renders  it  proper 
to  make  a  few  remarks.  How  he  could  have  had  any  personal  knowledge  of  what  he  states; 
I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand.  Our  political  intercourse  had  ceased  for  years.  We  had  none 
subsequent  to  the  fall  of  1821,  and  in  fact  none  of  any  kind  after  that,  beyond  the  mere  ordi- 
nary  civilities  of  life. 

My  course  in  relation  to  the  point  in  question  was  very  different  from  what  he  states.  When 
my  name  was  withdrawn  from  the  list  of  presidential  candidates,  I  assumed  a  perfectly  neutral 
position  between  General  Jackson  and  Mr.  Adams.  I  was  decidedly  •pposed  to  a  congres- 
sional caucus;  as  both  these  gentlemen  were  also,  and  as  I  bore  very  friendly  personal 
and  political  relations  to  both,  I  would  have  been  very  well  satisfied  with  the  election  of 
either.  When  they  were  both  returned  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  I  found  myself 
placed  in  a  new  relation  to  them .  I  was  elected  Vice-President  by  the  people,  and  a  sense  of 
propriety  forbade  my  interference  in  the  election  in  the  House;  yet  I  could  not  avoid  forming 
an  opinion  as  to  the  principles  that  ought  to  govern  the  choice  of  the  House.  This  opinion 
was  early  formed,  long  before  I  had  the  least  intimation  of  the  course  of  the  prominent  in- 
dividual referred  to  by  Mr.  Crawford,  and  was  wholly  independent  of  what  might  be  his 
course,  or  that  of  any  other  individual.  What  the  principle  is  that  in  my  opinion  ought  to 
govern  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  case  of  a  contested  election,  I  leave  to  be  infer- 
red from  my  subsequent  course.  So  completely  did  my  opinion  depend  on  what  I  considered  a 
sound  principle  in  the  abstract,  that,  had  the  position  of  the  two  leading  candidates  before 
the  House  been  reversed,  it  would  not  have  influenced  my  course  in  the  least  degree. 

As  to  the  reason  by  which  Mr.  Crawford  endeavors  to  sustain  what  he  affirms  h&personalhj 
%new,  I  deem  them  wholly  unworthy  of  notice. 


CORRESPONDENCE 

BETTTEEJT 

GEBT.  ANDREW  JACKSOIV   AtfB  JOHN  C.  CALHOUtf, 

PRESIDENT  AND  VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


May  13,  1810. 

Sir:  That  frankness,  which,  I  trust,  has  always  characterized  me  through 
life,  towards  those  with  whom  I  have  been  in  the  habits  of  friendship,  in- 
duces me  to  lay  before  you  the  enclosed  copy  of  a  letter  from  William  H. 
Crawford,  Esq.,  which  was  placed  in  my  hands  on  yesterday.  The  submis- 
sion, you  will  perceive,  is  authorized  by  the  writer.  The  statements  and 
facts  it  presents  being  so  different  from  what  I  had  heretofore  understood 
to  be  correct,  requires  that  it  should  be  brought  to  your  consideration. 
They  are  different  from  your  letter  to  Governor  Bibb,  of  Alabama,  of  the 
13th  May,  1S18,  where  you  state  *4  General  Jackson  is  vested  with  full 
power  to  conduct  the  war  in  the  manner  he  may  judge  best,"  and  different, 
too,  from  your  letters  to  me  at  that  time,  which  breathe  throughout  a  spirit 
of  approbation  and  friendship,  and  particularly  the  one  in  which  you  say, 
€i  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  the  20th 
ultimo,  and  to  acquaint  you  with  the  entire  approbation  of  the  President  of 
all  the  measures  you  have  adopted  to  terminate  the  rupture  with  the  In- 
dians." My  object  in  making  this  communication  is  to  announce  to  you 
the  great  surprise  which  is  felt,  and  to  learn  of  you  whether  it  be  possible 
that  the  information  given  is  correct;  whether  it  can  be,  under  all  the  cir- 
cumstances of  which  you  and  I  are  both  informed,  that  any  attempt  seriously 
to  affect  me  was  moved  and  sustained  by  you  in  the  cabinet  council,  when, 
as  is  known  to  you,  I  was  but  executing  the  wishes  of  the  Government, 
and  clothed  with  the  authority  to  a  conduct  the  war  in  the  manner  I  might 
judge  best." 

You  can,  if  you  please,  take  a  copy:  the  one  enclosed  you  will  please  re- 
turn to  me. 

I  am,  sir,  very  respectfully, 

Your  humble  servant, 

ANDREW  JACKSON. 

The  Hon.  J.  C.  Calhoun. 


Copy  of  Mr.  Crawford's  letter  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  enclosed  in  the  above. 

Woodlawn,  30th  Jlpril,  1830. 

My  dear  Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  16th  was  received  by  Sunday's  mail, 
together  with  its  enclosure.  I  recollect  having  conversed  with  you  at  the 
time  and  pkce,  and  upon  the  subject,  in  that  enclosure  stated,  butl  have  not 


9 

a,  distinct  recollection  of  What  I  said  to  you,  but  I  am  certain  there  is  op£ 
error  in  your  statement  of  that  conversation  to  Mr.  .  I  recollect  dis- 
tinctly what  passed   in  the  cabinet  meeting,  referred  to  in  your  letter  to 

Mr.  . 

Mr.  Calhoun's  proposition  in  the  cabinet  was,  that  General  Jackson  should 
he  punished  in  some  form,  or  reprehended  in  some  form;  I  am  not  positively 
certain  which.  As  Mr.  Calhoun  did  not  propose  to  arrest  General  Jackson, 
I  feel  confident  that  I  could  not  have  made  use  of  that  word  in  my  relation 
to  you  of  the  circumstances  which  transpired  in  the  cabinet,  as  I  have  no 
recollection  of  ever  having  designedly  misstated  any  transaction  in  my  life, 
and  most  sincerely  believe  I  never  did.  My  apology  for  having  disclosed 
what  passed  in  a  cabinet  meeting  is  this:  In  the  summer  after  that  meeting, 
an  extract  of  a  letter  from  Washington  was  published  in  a  Nashville  paper, 
in  which  it  was  stated  that  I  had  proposed  to  arrest  General  Jackson,  but 
that  he  was  triumphantly  defended  by  Mr.  Calhoun  and  Mr.  Adams.  This 
letter,  I  always  believed,  was  written  by$Mr.  Calhoun,  or  by  his  directions. 
It  had  the  desired  effect.  General  Jackson  became  extremely  inimical  to 
me,  and  friendly  to  Mr.  Calhoun.  In  stating  the  arguments  of  Mr.  Adams 
to  induce  Mr.  Monroe  to  support  General  Jackson's  conduct  throughout, 
adverting  to  Mr.  Monroe's  apparent  admission,  that  if  a  young  officer  had 
acted  so  he  might  be  safely  punished,  Mr.  Adams  said,  that  it  GeneralJackson 
had  acted  so,  that  if  he  was  a  subaltern  officer,  shooting  was  too  good  for 
him.  This,  however,  was  said  with  a  view  of  driving  Mr.  Monroe  to  an 
unlimited  support  of  what  General  Jackson  had  done,  and  not  with  an  un- 
friendly view  to  the  General.  Indeed,  my  own  views  on  the  subject  had 
undergone  a  material  change  after  the  cabinet  had  been  convened.  Mr. 
Calhoun  made  some  allusion  to  a  letter  the  General  had  written  to  the 
President,  who  had  forgotten  that  he  had  received  such  a  letter,  but  said,  if 
he  had  received  such  an  one,  he  could  find  it;  and  went  directly  to  his  cabi- 
net, and  brought  the  letter  out.  In  it  General  Jackson  approved  of  the  de- 
termination of  the  Government  to  break  up  Amelia  island  and  Galveztown, 
and  gave  it  also  as  his  opinion  that  the  Floridas  ought  to  be  taken  by  the 
United  States.  He  added,  it  might  be  a  delicate  matter  for  the  Executive 
to  decide;  but  if  the  President  approved  of  it,  he  had  only  to  give  a  hint 
to  some  confidential  memher  of  Congress,  say  Johnny  Ray,  and  he  would 
do  it,  and  take  the  responsibility  of  it  on  himself.  I  asked  the  President  if  the 
letter  had  been  answered.  He  replied,  no;  for  that  he  had  no  recollection  of 
having  received  it.  I  then  said  that  I  had  no  doubt  that  General  Jackson, 
in  taking  Pensacola,  believed  he  was  doing  what  the  Executive  wished* 
After  that  letter  was  produced,  unanswered,  I  should  have  opposed  the  in- 
fliction of  punishment  upon  the  General,  who  had  considered  the  silence  of 
the  President  as  a  tacit  consent;  yet  it  was  after  this  letter  was  produced  and 
read,  that  Mr.  Calhoun  made  his  proposition  to  the  cabinet  for  punishing 
the  General.  You  may  show  this  letter  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  if  you^please. 
"With  the  foregoing  corrections  of  what  passed  in  the  cabinet,  your  account 

of  it  to  Mr. is  correct.     Indeed,  there  is  but  one  inaccuracy  in  it,  and 

one  omission.  What  I  have  written  beyond  them  is  a  mere  amplification 
of  what  passed  in  the  cabinet.  I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  hinted  at  the  letter 
of  the  General  to  the  President;  yet  that  letter  had  a  most  important  bearing 
upon  the  deliberations  of  the  cabinet,  at  least  in  my  mind,  and  possibly  in 
tjae  minds  ef  Mr.  Adams  and  the  President;  but  neither  expressedlany 
3 


10 

opinion  upon  the  subject.     It  seems  it  had  none  upon  the  mind  of  Mr.  Cal- 
houn,  for  it  made  no  change  in  his  conduct. 

I  am,  dear  sir,  your  friend, 

And  most  obedient  servant, 
Hon.  John  Forsyth.  WM.  H.  CRAWFORD. 

A  true  copy  from  the  original  in  my  possession. 

May  12,  1830.  JOHN  FORSYTH. 

Mr.  Calhoun  to  General  Jackson. 

Washington,  13th  May,  1830. 

Sir:  Agreeably  to  your  request,  I  herewith  return  the  copy  of  a  letter  sign- 
ed William  H.  Crawford,  which  I  received  under  cover  of  your  note  of  this 
instant,  handed  to  me  this  morning  by  Mr.  Donelson,  of  which  I  have  re- 
tained a  copy,  in  conformity  with  your  permission. 

As  soon  as  my  leisure  will  permit,  you  shall  receive  a  communication  from 
me  on  the  subject  to  which  it  refers.  In  the  mean  time,  I  cannot  repress 
the  expression  of  myindignation  at  the  affair;  while,  at  the  same  time,  1  can- 
not but  express  my  gratification  that  the  secret  and  mysterious  attempts 
which  have  been  making,  by  false'insinuations,  for  years,  for  political  pur- 
poses, to  injure  my  character,  are  at  length  brought  to  light. 

J.  C.  CALHOUN 

To  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Calhoun  to  General  Jackson. 

Washington,  29th  May,  1830. 

Sir:  In  answering  your  letter  of  the  13th  instant,  I  wish  to  be  distinctly  un- 
derstood, that  however  high  my  respect  is  for  your  personal  character,  and  the 
exalted  station  which  you  occupy,  I  cannot  recognise  the  right  on  your  part  X& 
call  in  question  my  conduct  on  the  interesting  occasion  to  which  your  letter 
refers.  I  acted,  on  that  occasion,  in  the  discharge  of  a  high  official  duty,  and  un- 
der responsibility  to  my  conscience  and  my  country  only,  in  replying,  then, 
to  your  letter,  I  do  not  place  myself  in  the  attitude  of  apologising  for  the  pan 
I  may  nave  acted,  or  of  palliating  my  conduct  on  the  accusation  of  Mr. 
Crawford.  My  course,  I  trust,  requires  no  apology;  and  if  it  did,  I  have  too 
much  self  respect  to  make  it  toany  one  in  a  case  touching  the  discharge  of 
my  official  conTfttct.  I  stand  on  very  different  ground.  I  embrace  the  op- 
portunity which  your  letter  offers,  not  for  the  purpose  of  making  excuses,  but 
as  a  suitable  occasion  to  place  my  conduct  in  relation  to  an  interesting  public 
transaction  in  its  proper  light;  and  I  am  gratified  that  Mr.  Crawford, though 
far  from  intending  me  a  kindness,  has  afforded  me  such  an  opportunity. 

In  undertaking  to  place  my  conduct  in  its  proper  light,  I  deem  it  proper  to 
premise  that  it  is  very  far  from  my  intention  to  defend  mine  by  impeaching 
yours.  Where  we  have  differed,  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  differed  honestly; 
and  in  claiming  to  act  on  honorable  and  patriotic  motives  myself,  I  cheerful- 
ly accord  the  same  to  you. 

I  know  not  that  I  correctly  understood  your  meaning;  but,  after  a  careful 
perusal,  I  would  infer  from  your  letter  that  you  had  learned  for  the  first 
time,  by  Mr.  Crawford's  letter,  that  you  and  I  placed  different  constructions 
on  the  orders  under  which  you  acted  in  the  Seminole  war;  and  that  you  had 


11 

been  led  to  believe,  previously,  by  my  letters  to  yourself  and  Governor  Bibb,, 
that  I  concurred  with  you  in  thinking  that  your  orders  were  intended  to 
authorize  your  attack  on  the  Spanish  posts  in  Florida.  Under  these  impres- 
sions, you  would  seem  to  impute  to  me  some  degree  of  duplicity,  or  at  least 
concealment,  which  required  on  my  part  explanation.  I  hope  that  my 
conception  of  your  meaning  is  erroneous;  but  if  it  be  not,  and  your  meaning 
be  such  as  I  suppose,  I  must  be  permitted  to  express  my  surprise  at  the  mis- 
apprehension, which,  I  feel  confident,  it  will  be  in  ray  power  to  correct  by 
the  most  decisive  proof,  drawn  from  the  public  documents,*  and  the  corre- 
spondence between  Mr.  Monroe  and  yourself,  growing  out  of  the  decision 
of  the  cabinet  on  the  Seminole  affair,  which  passed  through  my  hands  at  the 
time,  and*  which  I  now  have  his  permission  to  use,  as  explanatory  of  my  ■ 
opinion,  as  well  as  his,  and  the  other  members  of  his  administration.  To 
Save  you  the  trouble  of  turning  to  the  file  of  your  correspondence,  I  have 
enclosed  extracts  from  the  letters,  which  clearly  prove  that  the  decision  of 
the  cabinet  on  the  point  that  your  orders  did  not  authorize  the  occupation  of 
St.  Mark's  and  Pensacola,  was  early  and  fully  made  known  to  you,  and  that 
I,  in  particular,  concurred  in  the  decision. 

Mr.  Monroe's  letter  of  the  19th  July,  1818,  the  first  of  the  series,  and 
written  immediately  after  the  decision  of  the  cabinet,  and  from  which  I 
have  given  a  copious  extract,  enters  fully  into  the  views  taken  by  the  Execu- 
tive of  the  whole  subject.  In  your  reply  of  the  19th  of  August,  1818,  you 
object  to  the  construction  which  the  administration  had  placed  on  your  or- 
ders, and  you  assign  your  reasons  at  large,  why  you  conceived  that  the  or- 
ders under  which  you  acted  authorized  your  operations  in  Florida.  Mr* 
Monroe  replied  on  the  20th  October,  1818;  and,  after  expressing  his  regret 
that  you  had  placed  a  construction  on  your  orders  different  from  what  was 
intended,  he  invited  you  to  open  a  correspondence  with  me,  that  your  con- 
ception of  the  meaning  of  your  orders  and  that  of  the  administration, 
might  be  placed,  with  the  reasons  on  both  sides,  on  the  files  of  the  War 
Department.  Your  letter  of  the  15th  of  November,  in  answer,  agrees  to 
the  correspondence  as  proposed,  but  declines  commencing  it;  to  which  Mr. 
Monroe  replied  by  a  letter  of  the  21st  December,  stating  his  reasons  for 
suggesting  the  correspondence,  and  why  he  thought  that  it  ought  to  commence 
with  you.  To  these,  I  have  added  an  extract  from  your  letter  of  the  7th 
December,  approving  of  Mr.  Monroe's  message  at  the  opening  of  Congress, 
which,  though  not  constituting  a  part  of  the  correspondence  from  which  I 
have  extracted  so  copiously,  is  intimately  connected  wit^i  the  subject  under 
consideration. 

But  it  was  not  by  private  correspondence  only,  that  the  view  which  the 
Executive  took  of  your  orders  was  made  known,  in  his  message  to  the 
House  of  Representatives  of  the  25th  March,  1818,  long  before  information 
of  the  result  of  your  operation  in  Florida  was  received,  Mr.  Monroe  states, 
that  "  orders  had  been  given  to  the  General  in  command  not  to  enter  Flori- 
da, unless  it  be  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy,  and,  in  that  case,  to  respect  the 
Spanish  authority,  wherever  it  may  be  maintained;  and  he  will  be  instruct- 
ed to  withdraw  his  forces  from  the  province  as  soon  as  he  has  reduced  that 
tribe  (the  Seminoles)  to  order,  and  secured  our  fellow-citizens  in  that 
quarter,  by  satisfactory  arrangements,  against  its  unprovoked  and  savage 
hostilities  in  future."  In  his  annual  message  at  the  opening  of  Congress,  in 

*  See  Appendix  from  A,  to  F,  inclusive,  being  anextract,  from  a  private  correspondence 
between  Mr.  Monroe  and  Gen.  Jackson  in  the  Seminole  campaign. 


la 

November  of  the  same  year,  the  President,  speaking  of  your  entering  Flori- 
da, says:  iC  On  authorizing  Major  General  Jackson  to  enter  Florida,  in 
pursuit  of  the  Seminoles,  care  was  taken  not  to  encroach  on  the  rights  of 
Spain. "  Again:  u  In  entering  Florida  to  suppress  this  combination,  no 
idea  was  entertained  of  hostility  to  Spain;  and,  however  justifiable  the  com- 
manding General  was,  in  consequence  of  the  misconduct  of  the  Spanish  offi- 
cers; in  entering  St.  Mark's  and  Pensacola,  to  terminate  it,  by  provingtothe 
savages,  and  iheir  associates,  that  they  could  not  be  protected,  even  there, 
yet  the  amicable  relation  between  the  U.  States  and  Spain  could  not  be  al- 
tered by  that  act  alone.  By  ordering  the  restitution  of  those  posts,  those 
relations  were  preserved.  To  a  change  of  them  the  power  of  the  Executive 
is  deemed  incompetent.  It  is  vested  in  Congress  alone."  The  vtew  taken 
of  this  subject  met  your  entire  approbation,  as  appears  from  the  extract  of 
your  letter,  of  7th  December,  181S,  above  referred  to. 

After  such  full  and  decisive  proof,  as  it  seems  to  me,  of  the  view  of  the 
Executive,  I  had  a  right,  as  I  supposed,  to  conclude  that  you  long  since 
knew  that  the  administration,  and  myself  in  particular,  were  of  the  opinion 
that  the  orders  under  which  you  aote^  ffid  mv^  fliitjiorize  vau  tp  occupy  the 
Spanish  posts;  but  I  now  infer  trom  your  letter,  to  which  this  is  in  answer, 
that  such  conclusion  was  erroneous,  and  that  you  were  of  the  impression,  till 
you  received  Mr.  Crawford's  letter,  that  I  concurred  in  the  opposite  con- 
struction, which  you  gave  to  your  orders,  that  they  were  intended  to  autho- 
rize you  to  occupy  the  posts.  You  rely  for  this  impression,  as  I  understand 
you,  on  certain  general  express-ions  in  my  letter  to  Governor  Bibb,  of  Ala- 
bama, of  the  13th  of  May,  1S18,  in  which  I  stated  that  "  General  Jackson  is 
vested  with  full  powers  to  conduct  the  war  in  the  manner  he  shall  judge 
best,"  and  also  in  my  letter  of  the  6th  February,  1818,  in  answer  to  yours  of 
the  20th  January  of  the  same  year,  in  which  I  acquainted  you  "  with  the 
entire  approbation  of  the  President  of  all  the  measures  you  had  adopted  to 
terminate  the  rupture  with  the  Seminole  Indians." 

I  will  not  reason  the  point,  that  a  letter  to  Gov.  Bibb,  which  was  not 
communicated  to  you,  which  bears  date  long  after  you  had  occupied  St. 
Mark's,  and  subsequent  to  the  time  you  had  determined  to  occupy  Pensacola, 
(see  your  letter  of  June  2d,  1S18,  to  me,  published  with  the  Seminole  docu- 
ments,) could  give  you  authority  to  occupy  those  posts.  I  know,  that,  in 
quoting  the  letters,  you  could  not  intend  such  absurdity,  to  authorize  such 
an  inference;  and  I  must  therefore  conclude  that  it  was  your  intention  by 
the  extract  to  show,  that,  at  the  time  of  writing  the  letter,  it  was  my  opinion 
that  the  orders  under  which  you  did  act  were  intended  to  authorize  the  oc- 
cupation of  the  Spanish  posts.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  remote 
from  my  intention  in  writing  the  letter.  It  would  have  been  in  opposition 
to  the  view  which  I  have  always  taken  of  your  orders,  and  in  direct  con- 
tradiction to  the  President's  message  of  the  25th  March,  1818,  communi- 
cated but  a  few  weeks  before  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  (already  re- 
ferred to,)  and  which  gives  a  directly  opposite  construction  to  your  orders. 
In  fact,  the  letter,  on  its  faee,  proves  that  it  was  not  the  intention  of  the 
Government  to  occupy  the  Spanish  posts.  By  referring  to  it,  you  will  see 
that  I  enclosed  to  the  Governor  a  copy  of  my  orders  to  General  Gaines,  of 
the  16th  December,  1817,  authorizing  him  to  cross  the  Spanish  line,  and 
to  attack  the  Indians  within  the  limits  of  Florida,  unless  they  should  take 
shelter  under  a  Spanish  post,  in  which  event,  he  was  directed  to  report  im- 
mediately to  the  Department,  which  order  Governor  Bibb  was  directed  to 


13 

consider  as  his  authoritjr  for  carrying  the  war  into  Tlorida,  thus  clearly  es-^ 
tablisbing  the  fact  that  the  order  was  considered  still  in  force,  and  not  su- 
perseded by  that  to  you,  directing  you  to  assume  the  command  in  the  Semi/* 
n,ole  war. 

Nor  can  my  letter  of  the  6th  of  February  be,  by  any  sound  rule  of  con- 
struction, interpreted  into  an  authority  to  occupy  the  Spanish  posts,  or  as 
countenancing,  on  my  part,  such  an  interpretation  of  the  orders  previously 
given  to  you.  Your  letter  of  the  20th  January,  to  which  mine  is  an  answer, 
bears  date  at  Nashville,  before  you  set  out  on  the  expedition,  and  consists 
of  a  narrative  of  the  measures  adopted  by  you,  in  order  to  bring  your  forces 
into  tYie  field,  where  they  were  directed  to  rendezvous,  the  time  intended 
for  marching,  the  orders  for  supplies  given  to  the  contractors,  with  other  de- 
tails of  the  same  kind,  without  the  slightest  indication  of  your  intention  to 
act  against  the  Spanish  posts;  and  the  approbation  of  the  President  of  the 
measures  you  had  adopted  could  be  intended  to  apply  to  those  detailed  in 
your  letter.  I  do  not  think  that  your  letter  of  the  13th  instant  presents  the 
question,  whether  the  Executive  or  yourself  placed  the  true  construction, 
considered  as  a  military  question,  on  the  orders  under  which  you  acted. 
But  I  must  be  permitted  to  say,  that  the  construction  of  the  former  is  in 
strict  conformity  with  my  intention  in  drawing  up  the  orders;  and  that,  if 
they  be  susceptible  of  a  different  construction,  it  was  far  from  being  my  in- 
tention they  should  be.  I  did  not  then  suppose,  nor  have  I  ever,  that  it  was 
in  the  power  of  the  President,  under  the  Constitution,  to  order  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  posts  of  a  nation  with  whom  we  were  not  at  war;  (whatever  might 
be  the  right  of  the  General,  under  the  law  of  nations,  to  attack  an  enemy 
sheltered  under  the  posts  of  a  neutral  power;)  and  had  I  been  directed  by 
the  President  to  issue  such  order,  I  should  have  been  restrained  from 
complying  by  the  higher  authority  of  the  Constitution,  which  I  had  sworn 
to  support.  Nor  will  I  discuss  the  question,  whether  the  order  to  General 
Gaines,  inhibiting  him  from  attacking  the  Spanish  posts,  (a  copy  of  which 
was  sent  to  you,)  was  in  fact,  and  according  to  military  usage,  an  order  to 
you,  and  of  course  obligatory  until  rescinded.  Such,  certainly,  was  my  opi- 
nion. I  know  that  yours  was  different.  You  acted  on  your  construction, 
believing  it  to  be  right;  and,  in  pursuing  the  course  which  I  have  done,  I 
claim  an  equal  right  to  act  on  the  construction  which  I  conceived  to  be  cor- 
rect, knowing  it  to  conform  to  my  intentions  in  issuing  the  orders.  But,  in 
waiving  now  the  question  of  the  true  construction  of  the  orders,  I  wish  it 
however  to  be  understood,  it  is  only  because  I  do  not  think  it  presented  by 
your  letter,  and  not  because  I  have  now,  or  ever  had,  the  least  doubt  of  the 
correctness  of  the  opinion  which  I  entertain.  I  have  always  been  prepared 
to  discuss  it  on  friendly  terms  with  you,  as  appears  by  the  extracts  from  Mr. 
Monroe's  correspondence,  and  more  recently  by  my  letter  to  you  of  the 
30th  of  April,  1828,  covering  a  copy  of  a  letter  of  Major  H.  Lee,  in  which 
I  decline  a  correspondence  that  he  had  requested  on  the  subject  of  the  con- 
struction of  your  orders.  In  my  letter  to  Major  Lee,  I  stated,  that,  "as you 
refer  to  the  public  documents  only  for  the  construction  which  the  Executive 
gave  to  the  orders,  I  infer  that  on  this  subject  you  have  not  had  access  to 
the  General's  (Jackson's)  private  papers;  but  if  I  be  in  an  error,  and  if  the 
construction  which  the  administration  gave  to  the  orders  be  not  stated  with 
sufficient  distinctness  in  the  then  President's  correspondence  with  him,  I  will 
cheerfully  give,  as  one  of  the  members  of  the  administration,  my  own  views 
fully  in  relation  to  the  orders,  if  it  be  desired  by  General  Jackson;  but  it  is 


14 

anly  with  him,  and  at  his  desire,  that,  under  existing  circumstances,  I  should 
feel  myself  justified  in  corresponding  on  this  or  any  other  subject  connected 
with  his  public  conduct:"  to  which  I  added,  in  my  letter  to  you,  covering  a 
copy  of  the  letter  from  which  the  above  is  an  extract,  "  with  you  I  cannot 
have  the  slightest  objection  to  correspond  on  this  subject,  if  additional  in- 
formation be  desirable."  You  expressed  no  desire  for  further  information, 
and  I  took  it  for  granted  that  Mr.  Monroe's  correspondence  with  you,  and 
the  public  documents,  furnished  you  a  full  and  clear  conception  of  the  con- 
struction which  the  Executive  gave  to  your  orders;  under  which  impression 
I  remained  till  I  received  your  letter  of  the  13th  instant. 

Connected  with  the  subject,  of  your  orders,  there  are  certain  expressions 
in  your  letter,  which,  though  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand,  I  cannot  pass 
over  in  silence.  After  announcing  your  surprise  at  the  contents  of  Mr. 
Crawford's  letter,  you  ask  whether  the  information  be  correct,  "under  all 
of  the  circumstances,  of  which  you  and  I  are  both  informed,  that  any  attempt 
seriously  to  affect  me  was  moved  and  sustained  by  you  in  cabinet  council, 
when,  as  is  known  to  you,  I  was  executing  the  wishes  of  the  Government." 
If  by  wishes,  which  you  have  underscored,  it  be  meant  that  there  was  any 
intimation  given  by  myself,  directly  or  indirectly,  of  the  desire  of  the  Go- 
vernment that  you  should  occupy  the  Spanish  posts,  so  far  from  being 
ct  informed,"  I  had  not  the  slightest  knowledge  of  any  such  intimation,  nor 
did  I  ever  hear  a  whisper  of  any  such  before.  But  I  cannot  imagine  that  it 
is  your  intention  to  make  a  distinction  between  the  wishes  and  the  public 
orders  of  the  Government,  as  I  find  no  such  distinction  in  your  correspond- 
ence with  the  President,  nor  in  any  of  the  public  documents;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  strongly  rebutted  by  your  relying  for  your  justification  con- 
stantly and  exclusively  on  your  public  orders.  Taking,  then,  the  "wishes 
of  the  Government"  to  be  but  another  expression  for  its  orders,  I  must  refer 
to  the  proof  already  offered,  to  show  that  the  wishes  of  the  Government,  in 
relation  to  the  Spanish  posts,  were  not  such  as  you  assume  them  to  be. 

Having,  I  trust,  satisfactorily  established  that  there  has  not  been  the  least 
disguise  as  to  the  construction  of  your  orders,  I  will  now  proceed  to  state 
the  part  which  I  took  in  the  deliberations  of  the  cabinet.  My  statement 
will  be  confined  strictly  to  myself,  as  I  do  not  feel  myself  justified  to  speak 
of  the  course  of  the  other  members  of  the  administration;  and,  in  fact,  only 
of  my  own  in  self-defence,  under  the  extraordinary  circumstances  connected 
with  this  correspondence. 

And  here  I  must  premise  that  the  object  of  a  cabinet  council  is  not  to 
bring  together  opinions  already  formed,  but  to  form  opinions  on  the  course 
which  the  Government  ought  to  pursue,  after  full  and  mature  deliberation. 
Meeting  in  this  spirit,  the  first  object  is  a  free  exchange  of  sentiment,  in 
which  doubts  and  objections  are  freely  presented  and  discussed.  It  is,  I 
conceive,  the  duty  of  the  members  thus  to  present  their  doubts  and  objec- 
tions, and  to  support  them  b}>-  offering  fully  all  of  the  arguments  in  their 
power,  but  at  the  same  time  to  take  care  not  to  form  an  opinion  till  all  the 
facts  and  views  are  fully  brought  out,  and  every  doubt  and  objection  care* 
fully  weighed.  In  this  spirit  I  came  into  the  meeting.  The  questions  in* 
volved  were  numerous  and  important:  whether  you  had  transcended  your 
orders;  if  so,  what  course  ought  to  be  adopted;  What  was  the  conduct  of 
Spain  and  her  officers  in  Florida;  what  was  the  state  of  our  relations  with 
Spain,  and,  through  her,  with  the  other  European  powers — a  question,  at 
that  time,  of  uncommon  complication  and  difficulty.  These  questions  had 
all  to  be  carefully  examined  and  weighed,  both  separately  and  in  connexion,, 


15 

before  a  final  opinion  could  be  wisely  formed;  ard  never  did  I  see  a  delibe, 
ration  in  which  every  point  was  more  carefully  examined,  or  a  greater  soli- 
citude displayed  to  arrive  at  a  correct  decision.  I  was  the  junior  member  of 
the  cabinet,  and  had  been  but  a  few  months  in  the  administration.  As  Se- 
cretary of  War,  I  was  more  immediately  connected  with  the  questions 
whether  you  had  transcended  your  orders,  and,  if  so,  what  course  ought  to 
be  pursued.  I  was  of  the  impression  that  you  had  exceeded  your  orders, 
and  had  acted  on  your  own  responsibility;  but  I  neither  questioned  your 
patriotism  nor  your  motives.  Believing  that  where  orders  were  transcend- 
ed, investigation,  as  a  matter  of  course,  ought  to  follow,  as  due  in  justice 
to  the  Government  and  the  officer,  unless  there  be  strong  reasons  to  the 
contrary,  I  came  to  the  meeting  under  the  impression  that  the  usual  course 
ought  to  be  pursued  in  this  case,  which  I  supported  by  presenting  fully  and 
freely  all  the  arguments  that  occurred  to  me  They  were  met  by  other  ar- 
guments, growing  out  of  a  more  enlarged  view  of  the  subject,  as  connected 
with  the  conduct  of  Spain  and  her  officers,  and  the  course  of  policy  which 
honor  and  interest  dictated  co  be  pursued  towards  her,  with  which  some  of 
the  members  of  the  cabinet  were  more  familiar  than  myself,  and  whose  duty 
it  was  to  present  that  aspect  of  the  subject,  as  it  was  mine  to  present  that 
more  immediately  connected  with  the  military  operations.  After  de- 
liberately weighing  every  question,  when  the  members  of  the  cabinet  came 
to  form  their  final  opinion,  on  a  view  of  the  whole  ground,  it  was  unani- 
mously determined,*  as  I  understood,  in  favor  of  the  course  adopted,  and 
which  was  fully  made  known  to  you  by  Mr.  Monroe's  letter  of  the  19th  of 
July,  1818.  I  gave  it  my  assent  and  support,  as  being  that  which,  under 
all  the  circumstances,  the  public  interest  required  to  be  adopted. 

I  shall  now  turn  to  the  examination  of  the  version  which  Mr.  Crawford 
has  given  of  my  course  in  this  important  deliberation,  beginning  with  his 
"apology  for  having  disclosed  what  took  place  in  a  cabinet  meeting."  He 
says;  *<  In  the  summer  after  the  meeting,  an  extract  of  a  letter  from  Wash- 
ington was  published  in  a  Nashville  paper,  in  which  it  was  stated  that  I 
(Mr.  Crawford)  had  proposed  to  arrest  General  Jackson,  but  that  he  was 
triumphantly  defended  by  Mr.  Calhoun  and  Mr.  Adams.  This  letter,  I  al- 
ways believed,  was  written  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  or  by  his  direction.  It  had 
the  desired  effect;  General  Jackson  became  inimical  to  me,  and  friendly  to 
Mr.  Calhoun." 

I  am  not  at  all  surprised  that  Mr.  Crawford  should  feel  that  he  stands  in 
need  of  an  apology  for  betraying  the  deliberations  of  the  cabinet.  It  is,  I 
believe,  not  only  the  first  instance  in  our  country,  but  one  of  a  very  few 
instances  to  be  found  in  any  country,  or  any  age,  that  an  individual  has  felt 
absolved  from  the  high  obligation  which  honor  and  duty  impose  on  one 
situated  as  he  was.  It  is  not,  however,  my  intention  to  comment  on  the 
molality  of  his  disclosure;  that  more  immediately  concerns  himself;  and 
I  leave  him  undisturbed  to  establish  his  own  rules  of  honor  and  fidelity,  in 
order  to  proceed  to  the  examination  of  a  question  in  which  I  am  more  im- 
mediately concerned — the  truth  of  his  apology. 

I  desire  not  to  speak  harshly  of  Mr.  Crawford.  I  sincerely  commiserate 
his  misfortune.  I  may  be  warm  in  political  contests,  but  it  is  not  in  me  to 
retain  enmity,  particularly  towards  the  unsuccessful.  In  the  political  con- 
test which  ended  in  1825,  Mr.  Crawford  and  myself  took  opposite  sides; 

*  Acquiesced  would  probably  be  more  correct,  at  least  as  applicable  to  one  member  of  the 
cabinet. 


16 

rxit  whatever  feelings  of  unkindness  it  gave  rise  to  have  long  since  passed 
away  on  my  part.  The  contest  ended  in  an  entire  change  of  the  political 
elements  of  the  country;  and,  in  the  new  state  of  things  which  followed,  I 
found  myself  acting  with  many  of  the  friends  of  Mr.  Crawford,  to  wl>om 
I  had  been  recently  opposed,  and  opposed  to  many  of  my  friends,  with  whom 
I  had,  till  then,  been  associated.  In  this  new  state  of  things,  my  inclina- 
tion, my  regard  for  his  friends  who  were  acting  with  me,  and  the  success 
of  the  cause  for  which  we  were  jointly  contending, — all  contributed  to  re- 
move from  my  bosom  every  feeling  towards  him,  save  that  of  pity  for  his 
misfortune.  I  would  not  speak  a  harsh  word,  if  I  could  avoid  it;  and  it  is 
a  cause  of  pain  to  me  that  the  extraordinary  position  in  which  he  has  placed 
me,  compels  me,  in  self-defence,  to  say  any  thing  which  must,  in  its  conse- 
quence, bear  on  his  character. 

I  speak  in  this  spirit  when  I  assert,  as  I  do,  that  his  apology  has  no  found- 
ation in  truth.  He  offers  no  reason  for  charging  me  with  so  dishonorable 
an  act  as  that  of  betraying  the  proceedings  of  the  cabinet,  and  that  for  the 
purpose  of  injuring  one  of  my  associates  in  the  administration.  The  charge 
rests  wholly  on  his  suspicion,  to  which  I  oppose  my  positive  assertion  that 
it  is  wholly  unfounded.  I  had  no  knowledge  of  the  letter,  or  connexion 
with  it;  nor  do  I  recollect  that  1  ever  saw  the  extract.  But  why  charge  me, 
and  not  Mr.  Adams?*  I  had  then  been  but  a  few  months  in  the  admmis- 
tration,  and  Mr.  Crawford  and  myself  were  on  the  best  terms,  without  a 
feeling,  certainly  on  my  part,  of  rivalry  or  jealousy.  In  assigning  the  mo- 
tive that  he  does  for  the  letters,  he  forgets  the  relation  which  existed  then 
between  you  and  himself.  He  says  it  had  the  desired  effect;  that  you  be- 
came friendly  to  me,  and  extremely  inimical  to  him.  He  does  not  remem- 
ber that  your  hostility  to  him  long  preceded  this  period,  and  had  a  very  dif- 
ferent origin.  He  certainly  could  not  have  anticipated  that  a  copy  of  his 
Jetter  would  be  placed  in  your  hand. 

These  are  not  the  only  difficulties  accompanying  his  apology:  there  are 
others  still  more  formidable,  and  which  must  compel  him  to  assign  some 
other  reason  for  disclosing  the  proceedings  of  the  cabinet. 

Mr.  McDuffie's  lettert  to  me,  of  the  14th  instant,  of  which  I  enclose  a 
copy,  proves  that  Mr.  Crawford  spoke  freely  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
cabinet  on  his  way  to  Georgia,  in  the  summer  of  1818;  and  dates  will  show- 
that  he  could  not  at  that  time  have  seen  the  extract  from  the  Nashville  pi- 
per, on  which  he  now  rests  his  apology.  The  deliberation  of  the  cabinet 
took  place  between  the  14th  and  25th  July,  ISIS.  On  the  former  day,  Mr. 
Monroe  returned  to  Washington  from  London,  and  on  the  latter  a  general 
exposition  of  the  views  of  the  Government  in  relation  to  the  operations  in 
Florida  appeared  in  the  Intelligencer.  The  letter  of  Mr.  Monroe  to  you. 
of  the  19th  July,  181S,  fixes  probably  the  day  of  the  final  decision  of  the 
cabinet.  Mr.  Crawford  passed  through  Augusta  on  the  11th  August,  as 
announced  in  the  papers  of  that  city,  on  which  day,  or  the  preceding,  his 
conversation,  to  which  Mr.  McDuffie's  letter  relates,  must  have  taken  place. 
On  a  comparison  of  these  dates,  you  will  see  that  it  was  impossible  that  Mr. 
Crawford  could  have  seen  the  extract  from  the  Nashville  paper  when  he 

*  I  wish  not  to  be  understood  as  intimating-  that  Mr.  Adams  had  the  least  connexion  with 
.  the  affair.     I  believe  him  to  be  utterly  incapable  of  such  baseness. 

\  The  letter  of  the  Hpn.  George  McDuffie,  Appendix,  marked  G, 


t 


17 


was  in  Edgefield,  and  he  must  consequently  find  some  other  apology  for  his' 
disclosures.  This  was  not  the  only  instance  of  his  making  the  disclosures 
before  he  saw  the  extract.  He  was  at  Miliedgville  on  the  16th  of  August, 
ISIS,  a  few  days  after  he  passed  through  Augusta;  and  a  little  after,  there 
appeared  a  statement  in  the  Georgia  Journal,  somewhat  varied  from  that 
made  in  Edgefield,  but  agreeing  with  it  in  most  of  the  particulars.  I  cannot 
Jay  my  hand  on  the  article,  but  have  a  distinct  recollection  of  it  You  no 
doubt  remember  it.  Circumstances  fixed  it  on  Mr.  Crawford,  and  it  has  not, 
io  my  knowledge,  been  denied. 

With  such  evidence  of  inaccuracy,  either  from  want  of  memory,  or  some 
other  cause,  in  what,  relates  to  his  own  motives  and  actions,  it  would  be  un- 
reasonable to  suppose  that  Mr.  Crawford's  statements  will  prove  more  cor- 
rect in  what  relates  to  me.  I  will  now  proceed  to  examine  them.  He  first 
states  that  I  proposed  that  you  should  "be  punished  in  some  form,  or  re- 
primanded in  some  form;"  and  to  make  my  course  more  odious,  as  I  sup- 
pose, he  adds,  that  "Mr.  Calhoun  did  not  propose  to  arrest  General  Jack- 
son." I  will  not  dwell  on  a  statement  which,  on  its  face,  is  so  absurd.  How 
could  an  officer  under  our  law  be  punished  without  arrest  and  trial?  And 
to  suppose  that  I  proposed  such  a-  course,  would  indeed  be  to  rate  my  un- 
derstanding very  low. 

The  next  allegation  requires  much  more  attention.  He  says:  "  Indeed, 
' '  my  own  views  on  the  subject  had  undergone  a  material  change  after  the  cabi- 
"  net  had  been  convened.  Mr.  Calhoun  made  some  allusion  to  a  letter  that 
"  General  Jackson  had  written  to  the  President,  who  had  forgotten  that  he 
"  had  received  such  a  letter,  but  said  if  he  had  received  such  a  one,  he  would 
*4  find  it,  and  went  directly  to  his  cabinet,  and  brought  it  out.  In  it  General 
"Jackson  approves  of  the  determination  of  the  Government  to  break  up 
'*  Amelia  island  and  Galveztown;  and  gave  it  also  as  his  opinion  that  Florida 
"  ought  to  be  taken  by  the  United  States.  He  added,  it  might  be  a  delicate 
"matter  for  the  Executive  to  decide,  but  if  the  President  approved  of  it,  he 
"had  only  to  give  a  hint  to  some  confidential  member  of  Congress,  say 
"  Johnny  Ray,  and  he  would  do  it,  and  take  the  responsibility  on  himself.  I 
"  asked  the  President  if  the  letter  had  been  answered:  he  replied,  no;  for  that 
"  he  had  no  recollection  of  receiving  it.  I  then  said  that  I  had  no  doubt  that 
"  General  Jackson,  in  taking  Pensacola,  believed  he  was  doing  what  the  Exe- 
"  cuti  ve  wished.  After  that  letter  was  produced,  unanswered,  I  should  have 
"  opposed  the  infliction  of  punishment  on  General  Jackson,  who  had  consi- 
dered the  silence  of  the  President  as  a  tacit  consent;  yet  it  was  after  the 
* '  letter  was  produced  and  read,  that  Mr.  Calhoun  made  the  proposition  to  the 
"  cabinet  for  punishing  the  General."  Again:  "  I  do  not  know  that  I  ever 
"  hinted  at  the  letter  to  the  President,  yet  that  letter  had  a  most  important 
"  bearing  on  the  deliberations  of  the  cabinet,  at  least  in  my  mind,  and  possi- 
"biy  on  the  minds  of  Mr.  Adams  and  the  President,  but  neither  expressed 
"  any  opinion  on  the  subject.  It  seems  it  had  none  on  the  mind  of  Mr.  Cal- 
"  houn,  for  it  made  no  change  in  his  conduct." 

It  will  be  no  easy  matter  for  Mr.  Crawford  to  reconcile  the  statement 
which  he  has  thus  circumstantially  made,  with  his  conduct  in  relation  to 
the  Seminole  affair,  from  the  time  of  the  decision  of  the  cabinet  till  the 
subject  ceased  to  be  agitated. 

How  will  he,  in  the  first  instance,  reconcile  it  with  his  Edgefield  statement, 
of  which  Mr.  McDufhVs  letter  gives  an  account?  The  contrast  between 
that  and  the  present  is  most  striking;  to  illustrate  which,  I  will  give  an  ex- 
3 


18 


re- 


tract from  Mr.  McDuffiVs  letter.  Mr.  McDuffie's  letter  says,  that  "he"  (Mr. 
"Crawford)  "stated  that  you"  (Mr.  Calhoun)  "had  been  in  favor  of  an  in- 
"quiry  into  the  conduct  of  General  Jackson,  and  that  he  was  the  only  mem- 
"  ber  of  the  cabinet  that  concurred  with  you.  He  spoke  in  strong  terms  of 
"  disapprobation  of  the  course  pursued  by  General  Jackson,  not  only  in  his 
"military  proceedings,  but  in  prematurely  bringing  the  grounds  of  his  defence 
"  before  the  country,  and  forestalling  public  opinion ;  thus  anticipating  the  ad- 
"  ministration.  On  this  point,  he  remarked,  that,  if  the  administration  could 
"  not  give  direction  to  public  opinion,  but  permitted  a  military  officer,  who 
"  had  violated  his  orders,  to  anticipate  them,  they  had  no  business  to  be  at 
"  Washington,  and  had  better  return  home."  Such  was  the  language  then 
held,  and  such  his  tone  of  feeling  at  that  time.  We  hear  not  one  word  of 
the  letter  which  makes  so  conspicuous  a  figure  in  his  present  statement;  not 
one  word  of  the  change  it  effected  in  his  mind  in  relation  to  your  conduct; 
not  a  word  of  his  taking  a  course  different  from  me:  but,  on  the  contrary,  he 
then  stated,  directly,  that  he  concurred  with  me  in  favoring  an  inquiry,  and 
indicated  no  difference  on  any  other  point;  and  so  far  from  exempting  you 
from  the  charge  of  breach  of  orders,  as  he  now  attempts  to  do,  he  asserted, 
positively,  that  you  had  violated  your  orders.  Shall  we  find  the  explanation 
of  the  contrast  in  the  two  statements  in  the  difference  of  his  motives  then 
and  now?  Is  his  motive  now  to  injure  me,  and  was  it  then  to  attack  another 
member  of  the  administration?  Or  must  it  be  attributed,  as  the  more  cha- 
ritable interpretation,  to  the  decay  of  memory?  Whatever  may  be  the  true 
expla  ation,  ail  will  agree  that  a  statement,  when  events  were  fresh  in  the 
me  <•,  y,  is  to  be  trusted  in  preference  to  one  made  twelve  years  after  the 
transaction,  particularly  if  the  former  accords  with  after  events,  and  the  lat- 
ter does  not,  as  is  the  case  in  this  instance.  At  the  next  session  of  Congress, 
your  conduct  in  the  Seminole  wTar  was  severely  attacked  in  both  branches  of 
the  Legislature.  Let  us  see  if  the  course  pursued  by  Mr.  Crawford  and 
his  personal  and  confidential  friends  can  be  reconciled  to  the  statement  which 
he  now  gives  of  his  course  in  the  cabinet.  Mr.  Cobb,  of  Georgia,  now  no 
more,  was  then  a  prominent  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  He 
was  the  particular,  personal,  and  confidential  friend  of  MivCravvford,  his 
near  neighbor,  and  formerly  a  law  student  under  him.  What  part  did  he 
take?  He  led  the  attack;  he  moved  the  resolutions  against  you;  he  accused 
you  expressly  of  the  violation  of  your  orders,  and  sustained  the  accusation 
with  all  his  powers.*  All  this  accords  with  Mr.  Crawford's  statement  of 
his  sentiment  and  his  course  at  the  time;  but  how  can  it  be  reconciled  to  his 
present  statement?  How  could  he,  on  any  principle  of  justice,  stand  by  and 
hear  you  thus  falsely  accused,  in  the  face  of  the  wTorld,  when  he,  according 
to  his  showing  now,  knew  that  it  was  all  false?  And  how  can  he  reconcile 
his  silence  then,  when  you  stood  so  much  in  need  of  his  assistance,  with  his 
disclosures  now,  when  the  agitation  has  long  since  passed  away,  and  his  aid 
no  longer  required?  But  let  us  turn  to  the  other  branch  of  the  Legislature, 
and  see  whether  any  occurrence  there  can  explain  this  apparent  mystery. 
General  Lacock,  of  Pennsylvania,  the  particular  friend  of  Mr.  Crawford, 
and  in  the  habit  of  constant  intercourse  with  him,  was  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  in  that  hody  to  whom  the  part  of  the  message  which  related  to 
the  Seminole  war  was  referred.  Mr.  Forsyth,  then  and  now  a  Senator  from 
Georgia,  and  who  now  acts  a  prominent  part  in  the  transaction  which  has 

•See  Appendix  H— letters  from  Hon.  Robert  Garnett. 


19 

given  rise  to  the  present  correspondence,  was  also  a  member,  and  was  then, 
as  he  is  now,  an  intimate,  personal,  and  political  friend  of  Mr.  Crawford, 
With  two  such  able  and  influential  friends  on  the  committee,  he  had  the 
most  favorable  opportunity  that  could  be  offered  to  do  you  justice.  Accord- 
ing to  his  own  statement,  he  felt  no  obligation  to  observe  silence  in  relation 
to  the  proceedings  of  the  cabinet.  Why,  then,  did  he  not  interpose  with  his 
friends  on  the  committee  to  do  you  justice?  That  he  did  not,  I  need  not 
offer  you  arguments  to  prove.  The  report  of  the  committee  is  sufficient 
testimony.  Should  he  say  that  he  was  restrained  by  feelings  of  delicacy 
from  interfering  with  his  friends  on  the  committee,  how  will  he  reconcile, 
on  the  principles  of  justice  and  honor,  his  silence  after  the  report  so  severe- 
ly assailing  your  motives  and  conduct  was  made,  when,  admitting  his  present 
statement,  it  was  completely  in  his  power  to  shield  you  from  censure? 

But  why  should  I  waste  time  and  words  to  prove  that  Mr.  Crawford's 
whole  course  is  in  direct  conflict  with  his  present  statement  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  cabinet,  when  there  remains  an  objection  that  cannot  be  sur- 
mounted? Tfye  statement  is  entirely  destitute  of  foundation.  It  is  not  true. 
Strange  as  it  may  appear,  after  an  account  so  minute  and  circumstantial,  no 
such  letter  as  he  refers  to  was  ever  before  the  cabinet,  or  alluded  to  in  its  de- 
liberations. My  memory  is  distinct  and  clear,  and  is  confirmed  by  the  no  less 
distinct  recollection  of  Mr.  Monroe  and  Mr.  Wirt,  as  will  fully  appear  by 
copies  of  their  statements,  herewith  enclosed.  Feelings  of  delicacy,  grow- 
ing out  of  the  political  relation  of  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Crowninshield,  the 
other  members  of  the  then  administration,  both  towards  you  and  myself,  have 
restrained  me  from  applying  for  their  statements,  but  I  have  not  the  least  ap- 
prehension that  they  would  vary  from  Mr.  Monroe's  or  Mr.  Wirt's/* 

Comment  is  useless,  I  will  not  attempt  to  explain  so  gross  a  misstatement 
of  the  proceedings  of  the  cabinet,  but  will  leave  it  to  those  friends  of  Mr, 
Crawford  who  have  placed  him  in  this  dilemma  to  determine  whether  his 
false  statement  is  to  be  attributed  to  an  entire  decay  of  memory,  or  to  some 
other  cause;  and  if  the  former,  to  exempt  themselves  from  the  responsibili- 
ty of  thus  cruelly  exposing  a  weakness  which  it  was  their  duty  to  conceal. 

It  now  becomes  necessary  to  say  something  of  your  letter  of  the  6th  Janu- 
ary, to  which  Mr.  Crawford  has  given,  in  his  statement,  so  much  promi- 
nence. My  recollection  in  relation  to  it  accords  with  Mr.  Monroe's  state- 
ment. I  came  into  his  room  when  he  had  apparently  just  received  the  let- 
ter. He  was  indisposed  at  the  time.  I  think  he  opened  the  letter  in  my 
presence,  and,  finding  that  it  was  from  you,  he  gave  me  the  letter  to  read.  I 
cast  my  eyes  over  it,  and  remarked  that  it  related  to  the  Seminole  affair,  and 
would  require  his  attention,  or  something  to  that  effect:  I  thought  no  more  of 
it.  Long  after,  I  think  it  was  at  the  commencement  of  the  next  session  of 
Congress,  I  heard  some  allusion  which  brought  the  letter  to  my  recollection. 
It  was  from  a  quarter  which  induced  me  to  believe  that  it  came  from  Mr. 
Crawford.  I  called,  and  mentioned  it  to  Mr.  Monroe,  and  found  that  he  had 
entirely  forgotten  the  letter.  After  searching  some  time,  he  found  it  among 
some  other  papers,  and  read  it,  as  he  told  me,  for  the  first  time. 

Having  stated  these  facts,  I  should  be  wanting  in  candor  were  I  not  also 
to  state,  that,  if  the  facts  had  been  otherwise;  had  Mr.  Monroe  read  your  let- 
ter, and  intentionally  omitted  to  answer  it,  and  had  it  been  brought  before 

*See  my  letter  to  Mr.  Monroe  and  Mr.  Wirt,  and  their  answers;  also,  letter  to  Mr.  Adams, 
and  his  answer,  written  since  the  date  of  this  letter.  Mr.  Crowninshield,  the  other  mem* 
ber  of  the  cabinet,  was  absent:  ?er  his  letter.  See  Appendix,  J,  K,  L,  M,  N,  O,  P. 


20 

the  cabinet,  in  my  opinion  it  would  not  have  had  the  least  influence  on  its 
deliberation.  The  letter  was  not  received  till  several  weeks  after  the  or- 
ders to  you  were  issued,  and  could  not,  therefore,  as  you  know,  have  had 
any  influence  in  drawing  them  up;  and  such,  I  conceive,  was  your  opinion, 
as  I  do  not  find  any  allusion  to  the  letter  in  your  public  or  private  corre- 
spondence at  the  time,  which  would  not  have  been  the  ca3e,  had  it,  in  your 
opinion,  formed  a  part  of  your  justification.  You  rested  your  defence  on 
what  I  conceive  to  be  much  more  elevated  ground  —on  the  true  construction, 
as  you  supposed,  of  your  orders,  and  the  necessity  of  the  measures  which 
you  adopted  to  terminate  the  war,  and  not  on  any  supposed  secret  wish  of 
the  Executive  in  opposition  to  the  public  orders  under  which  you  acted. 
Mr.  Crawford,  in  placing  your  justification  twiv  on  such  grounds,  not  only 
exposes  your  motives  to  be  questioned,  but,  as  far  as  his  acts  can,  greatly 
weakens  your  defence. 

On  a  review  of  this  subject,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the  time 
and  mode  of  bringing  on  this  correspondence.  It  is  now  twelve  years  since 
the  termination  of  the  Seminole  war.  Few  events  in  our  history  have 
caused  so  much  excitement,  or  been  so  fully  discussed,  both  in  and  out  of 
Congress.  During  a  greater  part  of  this  long  period,  Mr.  Crawford  was  a 
prominent  actor  on  the  public  stage,  seeing  and  hearing  all  that  occurred, 
and  without  restraint,  according  to  his  own  statement,  to  disclose  freely  all 
he  knew;  yet  not  a  word  is  uttered  by  him  in  your  behalf;  but  now,  when 
you  have  triumphed  over  all  difficulties,  when  you  no  longer  require  defence, 
he,  for  the  first  time,  breaks  silence,  not  to  defend  you,  but  to  accuse  one 
who  gave  you  every  support  in  your  hour  of  trial  in  his  power,  when  you 
were  fiercely  attacked,  if  not  by  Mr.  Crawford  himself,  at  least  by  some  of 
his  most  confidential  and  influential  friends.  Nor  is  the  manner  less  re- 
markable than  the  time.  Mr.  Forsyth,  a  Senator  from  Georgia,  here  in  his 
place,  writes  to  Mr.  Crawford,  his  letter  covering  certain  enclosures,  and 
referring  to  certain  correspondence  and  conversations  in  relation  to  my  con- 
duct in  the  cabinet  deliberation  on  the  Seminole  question.  Mr.  Crawford 
answers,  correcting  the  statements  alluded  to  in  some  instances,  and  con- 
firming and  amplifying  in  others;  which  answer  he  authorizes  Mr.  Forsyth 
to  show  me,  if  he  pleased.  Of  all  this,  Mr.  Forsyth  gives  me  not  the 
slightest  intimation,  though  in  the  habit  of  almost  daily  intercourse  in  the 
Senate;  and  instead  of  showing  me  Mr.  Crawford's  letter,  as  he  was  au- 
thorized to  do,  I  hear  of  it,  for  the  first  time,  by  having  a  copy  put  into  my 
hand  under  cover  of  your  letter  of  the  13th  instant — a  copy  with  important 
blanks,  and  unaccompanied  with  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter,  with  its  enclosures, 
to  which  Mr.  Crawford's  is  in  answer. 

Why  is  this  so?  Why  did  not  Mr.  Forsyth  himself  show  me  the  letter — 
the  original  letter?  By  what  authority  did  he  place  a  copy  in  your  hands? 
None  is  given  by  the  writer.  Why  is  your  name  interposed?  Was  it  to 
bring  me  into  conflict  with  the  President  of  the  United  States?  If  the  ob- 
ject of  the  correspondence  between  Mr.  Crawford  and  Mr.  Forsyth  be  to 
impeach  my  conduct,  as  it  would  seem  to  be,  by  what  rule  of  justice  am  I 
deprived  of  evidence  material  to  my  defence,  and  which  is  in  the  hands  of 
my  accusers — of  a  copy  of  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter,  with  the  enclosures;  of  a 
statement  of  the  conversation  and  correspondence  of  the  two  individuals 
whose  names  are  in  blank  in  the  copy  of  Mr.  Crawford's  letter  furnished 
me?  Why  not  inform  me  who  they  are?  Their  testimony  might  be  highly 
important,  and  even  their  names  alone  might  throw  much  light  on  this 
mysterious  affair. 


21 

1  must  be  frank.     I  feci  that  I  am  deprived  of  important  rights  by  the  in- 
terposition of  your  name,  of  which  I  have  just  cause  to  complain.       It  de- 
prives me  of  important  advantages,  which  would  otherwise  belong  to  my  po- 
sition.   By  the  interposition  of  your  name,  the  communication  which  would 
exist  between  Mr.  Forsyth  and  myself,  had  he  placed  Mr.  Crawford's  let- 
ter in  my  hands,  as  he  was  authorized  to  do,  is  prevented,  and  I  am  thus  de- 
prived of  the  right  which   would   have   belonged  to  me   in  that   case,  and 
which  he  could  not  injustice  withhold,  of  being  placed  in  possession  of  all 
the  material  facts  and  circumstances  connected   with  this  affair.       In  thus 
complaining,  it  is  not  my  intention  to  attribute  to  you  any  design  to  deprive  me 
of  so  important  an  advantage.  I  know  the  extent  of  your  public  duties,  and  how 
completely  they  engross  your  attention.  They  have  not  allowed  you  sufficient 
time  for  reflection  in  this  case,  of  which  evidence  is  afforded  by  the  ground 
that  you  assume  in  placing  the  copy  of  Mr.  Crawford's  letter  in  my  hand, 
which  you  state  was  submitted  by  his  authority.     I   do  not  so  understand 
him;  the  authority  was,  as  1  conceive,  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  and  not  to  yourself, 
and  applied  to  the  original  letter,  and  not  to  the  copy,  both  of  which,  as  I 
have  shown,  are  very  important  in  this  case,  and  not  mere  matters  of  form, 
I  have  asked  the  question,    Why  is  this  affair  brought  up  at  this  late  period, 
and  in  this  remarkable  manner?     It  merits  consideration,  at  least  from  my- 
self.    I  am  in  the  habit  of  speaking  my  sentiments  and  opinions  freely,  and 
I  see  no  cause  which  ought  to  restrain  me  on  the  present  occasion.     I  should 
be  blind  not  to  see  that  this  whole  affair  is  a  political  manoeuvre,  in  which  the 
design  is  that  you  should  be  the  instrument,  and  myself  the  victim,  but  in 
which  the  real  actors  are  carefully  concealed  by  an  artful  movement.     A, 
naked  copy,  with  the  names  referred  to  in  blank,  affords  slender  means  of  de- 
tection; while,  on  the  contrary,  had  I  been  placed,  as  I  ought  to  have  been,  in 
possession  of  all  the  facts  which  I  was  entitled  to  be,  but  little  penetration  would 
probably  have  been  required  to  see  through  the  whole  affair.     The  names 
which  are  in  blank  might  of  themselves,  through  their  political  associations, 
point  directly  to  the  contrivers  of  this  scheme.     I  wish  not  to  be  misunder- 
stood.    I  have  too  much  respect  for  your  character  to  suppose  you  capable 
of  participating  in  the  slightest  degree  in  a  political  intrigue.     Your  charac- 
ter is  of  too  high  and  generous  a  cast  to  resort  to  such  means,  either  for  your 
own  advantage  or  that  of  others.     This  the  contrivers  of  the  plot  well  knew; 
but  they   hoped  through  your  generous  attributes,  through  your  lofty  and 
jealous  regard  ior  your  character,  to  excite  feelings  through  which  they  ex- 
pected to  consummate  their  designs.     Several  indications  forewarned  me, 
long  since,  that  a  blow  was  meditated  against  me;  I  will  not  say  from  the 
quarter  from  which  this  comes;  but  in  relation  to  this  subject,  more  than  two 
years  since,  I  had  a   correspondence   with   the  District   Attorney   for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York,  on  the  subject  of  the   proceedings  of  the 
cabinet  on  the  Seminole  war,  which,  though  it  did  not  then  excite  particular 
attention,  has  since,  in  connexion  with  other  circumstances,  served  to  direct 
my  eye  to  what  was  going  on. 

Of  Mr.  Crawford  I  speak  with  pain,  and  only  in  self-defence;  but,  that 
you  may  more  fully  realize  the  spirit  which  actuates  him,  and  how  little 
scrupulous  he  is  of  the  means  that  he  uses  where  I  am  concerned,  I  would 
refer  you  for  illustration  to  facts  in  the  possession  of  one  wTho  stands  to  you 
in  the  relation  of  a  constitutional  adviser,  and  who  from  his  character  is  en- 
titled to  your  entire  confidence;  I  mean  the  Postmaster  General.  No  one 
knows  better  than  yourself  how  sacred  the  electoral  college  for  the  choice  of 


22 

President  and  Vice  President  should  be  considered  in  our  system  of  go- 
vernment. The  electors  are  the  trustees  of  the  high  sovereign  power  of  the 
people  of  the  States,  as  it  relates  to  the  choice  of  those  magistrates;  and  on 
the  degree  of  fidelity  with  which  the  trust  may  be  discharged  depends,  in  a 
great  degree,  the  successful  operation  of  out  system.  In  order  to  prevent,  as 
far  as  practicable,  political  intrigue,  or  the  operation  of  extraneous  influence 
on  the  choice  of  the  electoral  college,  it  is  provided  that  they  shall  meet  in 
their  respective  States,  and  that  they^shall  vote,  throughout  the  Union,  on  the 
same  day,  and  be  selected  within  thirty-four  days  of  the  time  designated  for 
the  election;  thus  excluding  with  the  greatest  care  all  other  influence  on  the 
choice  of  the  electors,  except  the  will  of  their  constituents;  but  where  the  object 
was  to  injure  me,  the  sacred  character  of  the  college  was  an  insufficient  re- 
straint. Mr.  Crawford  wrote  to  Major  Barry  in  October,  1828,  (  a  copy  of 
whose  letter  he  has  furnished  me  at  my  request,)  requesting  him  earnestly  to 
use  his  influence  with  the  electors  not  to  vote  for  me  as  Vice-President, 
though  he  could  not  be  ignorant  that  I  had  been  nominated  for  that  office, 
on  the  preceding  8th  January,  when  your  friends  nominated  you,  in  a  State 
convention,  for  the  high  station  which  you  now  hold,  and  that  the  electors 
were  pledged  to  vote  for  you  as  President,  and  myself  as  Vice-President. 
This  is  not  the  only  instance  of  his  interference.  He  pursued  the  same 
course  in  Tennesseeand  Louisiana,  as  I  am  informed  on  the  highest  authority. 

At  aa  earlier  period,  he  resorted  to  means  not  much  less  objectionable  to 
injure  my  standing,  and  to  influence,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  the  election. 
I  am  not  ignorant  of  his  correspondence  with  that  view,  and  which,  I  feel 
confident,  has  not  escaped  your  observation.  But  I  will  not  dwell  on  this 
disagreeable  subject.  1  have  no  resentment  towards  Mr.  Crawford.  I  have 
looked  on  in  silence,  without  resorting  to  any  means  to  counteract  the  injury 
which  he  intended  me;  and  I  now  depart  from  the  rule  which  I  have  care- 
fully observed  ever  since  the  termination  of  the  presidential  election  in 
1825,  because  his  present  attack  comes  through  a  channel,  my  high  respect 
for  which  would  not  permit  me  to  be  silent.  I  have,  however,  in  noticing 
what  I  could  not  pass  over,  situated  as  I  now  am,  endeavored  to  limit 
myself  by  the  line  of  self-defence,  and  if  I  have  apparently  gone  beyond 
in  making  any  remarks  on  his  conduct,  which  his  letter  did  not  naturally 
suggest,  my  apology  will  be  found  in  the  necessity  of  showing  the  state  of 
his  feelings  towards  me,  so  that  the  motive  which  influenced  him  in  the 
course  which  has  caused  this  correspondence  may  be  fully  understood. 

I  am,  sir,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

JOHN  C.  CALHOUN, 

President  Jackson. 


No.  4. 

General  Jackson  to  Mr.  Calhoun. 

May  30,  1830. 

Sir:  Your  communication  of  the  29th  instant  was  handed  me  this  morn^ 

<ng  just  as  I  was  going  to  church,  and  of  course  was  not  read  until  I  returned. 

I  regret  to  find  that  you  have  entirely  mistaken  my  note  of  the  13th 


23 

instant.  There  is  no  part  of  it  which  calls  in  Question  either  )7our  conduei 
or  your  motives  in  the  case  alluded  to.  Motives  are  to  be  inferred  from 
actions,  and  judged  of  by  our  God.  It  had  been  intimated  to  me  many 
years  ago,  that  it  was  you,  and  not  Mr.  Crawford,  who  had  been  secretly  en- 
deavoring to  destroy  my  reputation.  These  insinuations  I  indignantly  re- 
pelled, upon  the  ground  that  you,  in  all  your  letters  to  me,  professed  to  be 
my  personal  friend,  and  approved  entirely  my  conduct  in  relation  to  the 
Seminole  campaign.  I  had  too  exalted  an  opinion  of  your  honor  and 
frankness,  to  believe  for  one  moment  that  you  could  be  capable  of  such  de- 
ception. Under  the  influence  of  these  friendly  feelings,  (which  I  always 
entertained  for  you,)  when  I  was  presented  with  a  copy  of  Mr.  Crawford's 
letter,  with  that  frankness  which  ever  has,  and  I  hope  ever  will  characterize 
my  conduct,  I  considered  it  due  to  you,  and  the  friendly  relations  which 
had  always  existed  between  us,  to  lay  it  forthwith  before  you,  and  ask  if 
the  statements  contained  in  that  letter  could  be  true.  I  repeat,  1  had  a  right 
to  believe  that  you  were  my  sincere  friend,  and,  until  now,  never  expected 
to  have  occasion  to  say  oi  you,  in  the  language  of  Cassar,  Et  tu  Brute. 
The  evidence  which  has  brought  me  to  this  conclusion  is  abundantly  con- 
tained in  your  letter  now  before  me.  In  your  and  Mr.  Crawrford's  dispute 
I  have  no  interest  whatever;  but  it  may  become  necessary  for  me  hereafter, 
when  I  shall  have  more  leisure,  and  the  documents  at  hand,  to  place  the  sub- 
ject in  its  proper  light;  to  notice  the  historical  facts  and  references  in  your 
communication,  which  will  give  a  very  different  view  of  this  subject. 

It  is  due  to  myself,  however,  to  state  that  the  knowledge  of  the  Executive 
documents  and  orders  in  my  possession  wTill  show  conclusively  that  I  had 
authority  for  all  I  did,  and  that  your  explanation  of  my  powers,  as  declared 
to  Governor  Bibb,  shows  your  own  understanding  of  them.  Your  letter  to 
me  of  the  29th,  handed  to-day,  and  now  before  me,  is  the  first  intimation 
to  me  thdX  you  ever  entertained  any  other  opinion  or  view  of  them.  Your 
conduct,  words,  actions,  and  letters,  I  have  ever  thought,  show  this.  Under 
standing  you  now,  no  further  communicatio^with  you  on  this  subject  is  ne- 
cessary. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be 

Very  respecfully, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

ANDREW  JACKSON, 

To  the  Hon.  J.  C.  Calhoun. 


No.  5. 
Mr,  Calhoun  lo  General  Jackson. 

Steamboat  Potomac, 

Is/  June,  1830. 
Sir:  Though  you  intimate,  in  your  letter  of  yesterday,  that  no  further  com- 
munication with  me  is  necessary  on  the  subject  to  which  it  refers,  I  feel  my- 
self impelled  to  notice  some  of  your  remarks,  lest  my  silence  should  be 
construed  into  an  acquiescence  in  their  truth  or  justness.  I  shall  be  as  brief 
as  possible. 

You  say  that  I  have  entirely  mistaken  your  letter  of  the  13th  May, 
in  supposing  that  it  questioned  either  my  motives  or  conduct.  I  am 
not  aware  that  I  have  imputed  to  you  an  impeachment  of  my  motives; 


24: 

but  I  certainly  did  understand  that  you  had  questioned  the  sincerity  and 
frankness  of  my  conduct;  and  I  must  add  that  your  present  letter,  notwith- 
standing the  most  demonstrative  proof  which  I  had  offered  to  the  contrary, 
shows  clearly  that  I  understood  you  correctly,  and  of  course  was  not,  as 
you  suppose,  mistaken. 

I  have  no  douht  that  there  are  those  who,  actuated  by  enmity  to  m?,  and 
not  friendship  to  you,  have,  in  the  most  artful  manner,  for  years  intimated 
that  I  have  been  secretly  endeavoring  to  injure  you,  however  absurd  the 
idea;  but  I  must  express  my  surprise  that  you  should  have  permitted  insinu- 
ations, as  base  as  they  are  false,  to  operate  on  you,  when  every  word  and 
act  of  mine  gave  to  them  the  lie  direct.  I  feel  conscious  that  I  have  honor- 
ably and  fully  performed  towards  you  every  duty  that  friendship  imposed, 
and  that  any  imputation  to  the  contrary  is  wholly  unmerited. 

You  mistake  in  supposing  that  I  have  any  dispute  with  Mr.  Crawford. 
That  he  bears  me  ill  will  is  certain;  but  whatever  feeling  of  unkindness  I 
ever  had  towards  him  has  long  since  passed  away;  so  much  so,  that,  instead 
of  returning  his  attacks  on  me,  the  line  of  conduct  which  I  had  prescribed 
to  myself,  was,  to  bear  patiently  and  silently  all  that  he  might  do  or  say, 
leaving  it  to  time  and  truth  to  vindicate  my  conduct.  If  I  have  apparently 
departed  from  the  rule  that  I  had  prescribed  in  this  case,  it  was  not  be- 
cause there  was  any  disposition  on  my  part  to  alter  the  line  of  my  conduct; 
but  when  you  interposed  your  name,  by  placing  in  my  hands  a  copy  of  his 
letter,  addressed  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  I  was  compelled,  by  an  act  of  yours,  in 
order  that  my  silence  might  not  be  interpreted  into  an  acknowledgment  of 
the  truth  of  Mr.  Crawford's  statement,  to  correct  his  misstatements,  and  to 
expose  the  motives  of  enmity  which  actuated  him,  and  which  sought  to  use 
you  as  an  instrument  of  its  gratification. 

You  intimate,  that,  at  some  future  time,  when  you  may  have  more  leisure, 
you  will  place  the  subject  of  this  correspondence  in  a  different  light.  I  wish 
you  to  be  assured,  I  feel  every  confidence,  that,  whenever  you  may  be  dis- 
posed to  controvert  the  correctness  of  either  my  statement  or  conduct  in  this  af- 
fair, I  shall  be  prepared  on  my  part  to  maintain  the  truth  of  the  one,  and  frank- 
ness, honor,  and  patriotism  of  the  other,  throughout  this  whole  transaction. 
That  you  honestly  thought  that  your  orders  authorized  you  to  do  what 
you  did,  I  have  never  questioned;  but  that  you  can  show  by  any  document, 
public  or  private,  that  they  were  intended  to  give  you  the  authority  which 
you  assumed,  or  that  any  such  construction  was  placed  on  them,  at  any  time, 
by  the  administration,  or  myself  in  particular,  I  believe  to  be  impossible. 

You  remark  that  my  letter  of  the  29th  instant  is  the  first  intimation  you 
had  that  I  had  taken  a  different  view  from  yourself  of  your  orders.  That 
you  should  conceive  that  you  had  no  intimation  before,  is  to  me  unaccounta- 
ble. I  had  supposed  that  the  invitation  of  Mr.  Monroe,  in  his  letter  to  you 
of  the  20th  October,  1818,  with  the  intention  that  the  different  views  taken 
by  you  and  myself  of  the  orders  should  be  placed  on  the  files  of  the  Depart- 
ment, and  my  letter  to  you  of  the  13th  April,  1828,  covering  a  copy  of 
my  letter  to  Major  Lee,  in  which  I  refer  to  the  public  documents,  and  pri- 
vate correspondence  between  you  and  Mr.  Monroe,  as  containing  the  views 
taken  of  your  orders,  and  the  offer  which  I  made  to  present  my  views  more 
fully,  if  not  given  sufficiently  explicit  in  the  documents  referred  to,  were 
at  least  an  intimation  that  we  differed  in  the  construction  of  the  orders;  and 
I  feel  assured  that  neither  "my  conduct,  words,  actions,  or  letters,"  afford 
the  slightest  proof  to  the  contrary. 


Q5 

The  charge  which  ycu  have  made  against  me,  of  secret  hostility  and  oyu 
position,  which,  if  true,  would  so  vitally  affect  my  character  for  sincerity  and 
honor,  and  which  has  caused  a  rupture  in  our  long  continued  friendship,  has 
no  other  foundation  but  that  of  a  difference  between  us  in  the  construction 
of  your  orders — orders  issued  by  myself,  the  intention  of  which  I,  of  course, 
could  not  mistake,  whatever  may  be  their  true  construction  in  a  military 
point  of  view,  and  the  right  and  duty  of  interpreting  which  belonged  espe- 
cially to  me,  as  the  head  of  the  War  Department.  The  mere  statement,  of 
these  facts  must  give  rise  to  a  train  of  reflections,  the  expression  of  which 
I  cannot  suppress. 

Your  course,  as  I  understand  it,  assumes  for  its  basis  that  I,  who,  as  Secre- 
tary of  War,  issued  the  orders,  have  some  motive  to  conceal  my  construction 
of  them,  as  if  I  had  no  right  to  form  an  opinion  whether  the  officers  to 
whom  they  were  given  had  transcended  them  or  not,  while  the  officer  was 
at  perfect  liberty  to  express  and  maintain  his  construction.  My  right,  as 
Secretary  of  War,  was  at  least  as  perfect  as  yours,  as  commanding  officer,  to 
judge  of  the  true  intent  and  limits  of  your  orders;  and  I  had  no  more  motive 
to  conceal  my  construction  of  them  than  you  had  to  conceal  yours.  The 
idea  of  concealment  never  entered  my  conception;  and  to  suppose  it,  is  to 
suppose  that  I  was  utterly  unworthy  of  the  office  which  I  occupied.  Why 
should  I  conceal?  I  owed  no  responsibility  to  you;  and  if  you  were  not 
afraid  to  place  your  construction  on  your  orders,  why  should  I  be  afraid  to 
place  mine?  It  was  an  affair  of  mere  official  duty,  involving  no  question  of 
private  enmity  or  friendship,  and  I  so  treated  it. 

In  conclusion,  I  must  remark,  that  I  had  supposed  that  the  want  of  sincerity 
and  frankness  would  be  the  last  charge  that  would  be  brought  against  me. 
Coming  from  a  quarter  from  which  I  had  reason  to  expect  far  different  treat- 
ment, and  destitute,  as  I  know  it  to  be,  of  the  slightest  foundation,  it  could 
not  fail  to  excite  feelings  too  warm  to  be  expressed,  with  a  due  regard  to  the 
official  relation  which  I  bear  to  you. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully, 

Your  most  obedient  servant. 

J.  C.  CALHOUN 

£en.  A.  Jackson. 


No.  6. 
Mr.  Forsyth  to  Mr.  Calhoun. 

Georgetown,  District  of  Columbia, 

May  31,  1830. 
Sir:  Having,  at  the  request  of  the  President  to  be  informed  what  took 
place  in  the  cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe  on  the  subject  of  the  Seminole  cam- 
paign, laid  befdre  him  a  copy  (except  the  omission  of  a  name)  of  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Crawford,  which  has  since  been  communicated  to  you,  the  Presi- 
dent has  thought  it  just  to  permit  me  to  read  your  answer  of  the  29th  inst. 
to  his  letter  enclosing  it.  Between  you  and  the  President,  or  between  you 
and  Mr.  Crawford,  or  between  you  and  the  friends  of  Mr.  Crawford,  when 
spoken  of  in  general,  it  is  not  my  design  to  intervene^  There  aje,  however, 
4 


2b 

circumstances  in  your  letter,  of  a  personal  character,  that  require  to  be  placed 
in.  their  true  light,  in  justice  to  you  and  to  myself.  As  to  the  first,  you  com- 
plain that  the  interposition  of  the  name  of  the  President  deprives  you  of 
important  rights:  among  these  is  enumerated  "  the  right  of  being  placed 
(by  we)  in  possession  of  all  the  facts  and  circumstances  connected  with  this 
affair."  So  far  as  I  understand  the  point  on  which  the  President  desired 
information,  there  is, no  circumstance  or  fact  within  my  knowledge  that  can 
throw  any  additional  light  upon  it.  There  is  certainly  no  fact  or  circum- 
stance within  my  knowledge,  directly  or  collaterally  connected  with  it, 
that  is  not  at  your  service. 

If  desirable  to  you,  you  shall  be  furnished  with  a  copy  of  my  letter  (a 
copy  of  it  is  in  the  President's  hands)  referred  to  in  Mr.  C.'s  letter  to  me, 
and  with  the  name  of  the  gentleman  to  whom  it  was  written,  known  also  to 
the  President.  I  cannot  promise  a  copy  of  the  letter  from  Savannah,  to 
which  my  first  was  an  answer,  as  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  in  being;  if  it  is, 
and  can  be  found  on  my  return  to  Georgia,  you  can  have  a  copy  of  it 
Having  thus  offered  justice,  according  to  your  view  of  it,  you  will  not  be 
surprised  that  I  should  expect  justice  in  return.  Your  answer  to  the  Presi- 
dent seems  to  be  founded  upon  the  presumption  that  there  is  some  conspira- 
cy secretly  at  work  to  do  injury  to  your  character,  and  to  destroy  your 
political  consequence.  With  this  presumption  I  have  no  concern;  but  the 
circumstances  under  which  my  name  is  introduced  by  you  render  it  proper 
that  I  should  be  distinctly  informed  if  this  charge  of  conspiracy  against  you 
is  intended  to  apply  to  me. 

In  justice  to  Mr.  C. ,  and  for  his  use,  I  shall  apply  to  the  President  for  a 
copy  of  your  letter  of  the  29th  instant.  If  you  have  any  objection,  you 
will  state  it.  1  shall  take  it  for  granted  that  you  acquiesce,  unless  other- 
wise informed. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 


JOHN  FORSYTH 


Hon.  John  C.  Calhoun. 


No.  7. 

Mr.  Calhoun  to  Mr.  Forsyfh.  \ 

Steamboat  Potomac, 

1*/  June,  1830. 
Sir:  I  have  just  received  your  letter  of  the  31st  ultimo,  which  was  hand- 
ed me  by  Mr.  Archer.  It  gives  me  the  first  intimation  that  I  have  had,  that 
the  President  applied  to  you  to  obtain  information  of  what  took  place  in  the 
cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe  on  the  subject  of  the  Seminole  campaign;  and,  of 
course,  as  I  suppose,  that  you  were  acting  for  him,  and  not  for  yourself,  in 
your  correspondence  with  Mr.  Crawford.  Neither  the  copy  of  his  letter  to 
you,  placed  in  my  hands  by  the  President,  nor  his  note  covering  the  copy, 
gave  me  the  slightest  intimation  of  this  fact;  but,  on  the  contrary,  I  had  a 
right  to  presume,  from  Mr.  Crawford  giving  you  authority  to  show  me  his 
letter  if  you  pleased,  that  the  correspondence  originated  with  yourself,  and 
Was  under  your  entire  control,  and  not,  as  I  now  infer,  "at  the  request  of 
the  President,  and  for  his  use."  The  view  in  which  I  regarded  the  correspond- 


n 

eace,  and  which  I  was  justified  to  do,  judging  by  the  facts  before  me,  fully 
explains  my  remarks  in  my  letter  to  the  President,  as  far  as  you  were  con* 
cerned  with  them. 

In  the  direction  which  this  affair  has  taken,  it  is  not  for  me  to  determine 
whether  you  ought  to  furnish  me  any  information,  or  what  it  ought  to  be. 
Had  I  supposed,  that,  under  the  circumstances  in  which  I  was  placed,  such  a 
right  belonged  to  me,  I  would  have  claimed  it  previous!  •  to  my  answer  to 
the  President's  letter,  so  as  to  have  had  the  advantage,  before  I  made  my  re- 
ply, of  whatever  light  might  be  furnished  from  the  sources  I  therein  indicat* 
ed.  That  there  are  those  who  intend  fnat  this  affair  shall  operate  against  me 
politically,  by  causing  a  rupture  between  myself  and  the  President,  and 
thereby  affect,  if  possible,  my  standing  with  the  nation,  I  cannot  doubt,  for 
reasons  which  I  have  stated  in  my  answer  to  the  President;  but  I  must  be 
permitted  to  express  my  surprise  that  you  should  suppose  that  my  remarks 
comprehended  you,  when  they  expressly  referred  to  those  whose  names 
did  not  appear  in  the  transaction,  and  consequently  excluded  you. 

My  answer  to  the  President  is  his  property,  and  not  mine;  and  conse- 
quently it  belongs  to  him,  and  not  to  me,  to  determine  to  whom  he  shall,  or 
shall  not,  give  copies. 

I  am,  very  respectfully,  &c. 

J.  C.  CALHOUN. 

Hon.  John  Forsyth. 


No.  8. 
Mr.  Calhoun  to  General  Jackson. 

Pendleton,  June  22,  1830. 

Sir:  I  embrace  the  first  leisure  moment  since  my  return  home  to  enclose 
to  you  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  Forsyth,  the  original  of  which  was  handed 
to  me  on  my  passage  from  Washington  to  Norfolk,  on  board  the  steamboat, 
and  also  a  copy  of  my  answer. 

You  will  learn,  by  a  perusal  of  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter,  that  it  refers  to  the 
correspondence  between  us,  and  that  it  places  the  subject  of  that  corre- 
spondence in  a  light  in  some  respects  different  from  what  I  had  previously 
regarded  it.  I  had  supposed,  from  the  complexion  of  your  letters  to  me, 
that  the  copy  of  Mr.  Crawford's  letter  to  Mr.  Forsyth  had  been  placed  by 
the  latter  in  your  hands,  without  any  previous  act  or  agency  on  your  part; 
but,  by  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter  to  me,  I  am  informed  that  such  is  not  the  fact. 
It  seems  that  he  acted  as  your  agent  in  the  affair.  He  states  that  you  applied 
to  him  to  be  informed  of  what  took  place  in  the  cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe  on 
the  subject  of  the  Seminole  campaign;  and  I  infer,  as  the  information  could  be 
obtained  only  from  some  one  of  the  members  of  the  cabinet,  and  as  Mr. 
Forsyth  was  not  one,  and,  as  far  as  I  am  informed,  not  particularly  intimate 
with  any  of  its  members,  except  Mr.  Crawford,  that  the  object  of  your  re- 
quest was  to  obtain  the  information  through  Mr.  Forsyth  from  Mr.  Craw- 
ford, and  that,  consequently,  in  writing  to  him,  and  in  placing  the  copy  of 
his  letter  in  your  hands,  he  can  be  regarded  in  no  other  light  but  that  of 
vour  agent 


m 

Under  this  new  aspect  of  this  affair,  I  conceive  that  I  have  the  right  to 
claim  of  you  to  be  put  in  possession  of  all  the  additional  information,  which 
I  might  fairly  have  demanded  of  Mr.  Forsyth,  had  the  correspondence  been 
originally  between  him  and  myself,  on  the  supposition  on  which  I  acted  pre- 
viously to  the  receipt  of  his  letter.  He  avows  himself  ready,  if  desired  by 
me,  to  furnish  me  with  the  additional  information;  but  a  sense  of  propriety 
would  not  permit  me  to  make  the  request  of  him.  Considered  as  your 
agmt  in  this  affair,  it  is  not  for  me  to  make  the  request  of  information  of 
him.  What  additional  information  I  conceive  myself  to  be  entitled  to,  my 
letter  to  you  of  the  29th  May  will  sufficiently  indicate.  A  part  of  the 
information,  it  seems  from  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter,  is  already  in  your  posses- 
sion, and  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  the  whole  would  be  furnished  at  your 
request. 

I  make  this  application  solely  from  the  desire  of  obtaining  the  means  of 
e»ahling  me  to  unravel  this  mysterious  affair.  Facts  and  circumstances, 
light  of  themselves,  may,  when  viewed  in  connexion,  afford  important  light 
as  to  the  origin  and  object  of  what  I  firmly  believe  to  be  a  base  political  in- 
trigue, got  up  by  those  who  regard  your  reputation  and  the  public  interest 
much  less  than  their  own  personal  advancement. 

I  must  remark,  in  conclusion,  that  the  letter  of  Mr.  Forsyth  affords  to  my 
mmd  conclusive  proof  that  the  intimations  to  my  prejudice,  to  which  you 
refer  in  your  letter  of  the  30th  ultimo,  and  which  you  seem  to  think  made 
no  impression  on  your  mind,  have  not  been  without  their  intended  effect. 
On  no  other  supposition  can  I  explain  the  fact,  that,  without  giving  me  any 
intimation  of  the  step,  you  should  apply  for  information,  as  to  my  course 
in  the  cabinet,  to  one  whom  you  knew  to  be  hostile  to  me  as  Mr.  Craw- 
ford is,  and  who  could  not,  as  you  know,  make  the  disclosure  consistently 
with  the  principles  of  honor  and  fidelity,  when  my  previous  correspondence 
with  you  ought  to  have  satisfied  you  that  I  was  prepared  to  give  you,  frankly 
and  fully,  any  information  which  you  might  desire,  in  relation  to  my  course 
on  the  occasion. 

J.  C.  CALHOUN 

To  President  Jackson. 


No.  9. 
General  Jackson  to  Mr.  Forsylh* 

Washington,  June  7,  1830. 

Sir:  I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  2d  instant,  enclosing  a  copy  of  your 
letter  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  of  the  31st  ultimo,  and  his  reply  thereto,  all  which  I 
have  duly  noted. 

You  have  requested  a  copy  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  letter  to  me  of  the  29th  of 
May  last,  for  the  purpose  of  its  being  shown  to  Mr.  Crawford.  Mr.  Cal- 
houn, in  his  reply  to  you,  does  not  consent,  nor  yet  object,  to  your  being  fur- 
nished with  a  copy,  but  refers  the  matter  to  my  discretion. 

A  copy  of  the  original  letter  of  Mr.  Crawford  to  you  having  been  sub- 
mitted to  me,  it  occurred  as  being  proper  and  correct  that  you  should  be 
apprised  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  answer,  and  therefore  it  was  shown  to  you.  I 
eaimot,  on  reflection,  perceive  any  impropriety  in  now  according  to  you 


£9 

the  request  you  halve  made,  particularly  as,  en  your  referring  this  matter  to 
Mr.  Calhoun,  he  does  not  object.  I  accordingly  send  it,  with  this  injunction, 
that  it  be  used  for  no  other  purpose  but  the  one  you  have  stated,  to  be 
shown  to  Mr.  Crawford. 

In  the  letter  which  you  have  addressed  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  you  state  as  fol- 
lows, to  wit:  <*  Having,  at  the  request  of  the  President  to  be  informed  what 
took  place  in  the  cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe  on  the  subject  of  the  Seminole 
campaign,  laid  before  him  a  copy  (except  the  omission  of  a  name)  of  a  let- 
ter from  Mr.  Crawford,"  &c.  &c.  This  is  construed  by  Mr.  Calhoun  into 
a  declaration  that  I  requested  you  to  furnish  me  with  the  information.  I 
am  satisfied  it  was  not  by  you  so  intended,  and  I  would  be  glad  you  would 
so  explain  it  to  him.  I  never  conversed  with  you  upon  this  subject  previ- 
ous to  the  time  when  you  sent  me  Mr.  Crawford's  letter.  The  facts  are 
these:  I  had  been  informed  that  Mr.  Crawford  had  made  a  statement  con- 
cerning this  business,  which  had  come  to  the  knowledge  of  Col.  James  A. 
Hamilton,  of  New  York.  On  meeting  with  Col.  Hamilton,  I  inquired  of 
him,  and  received  for  answer  that  he  had,  but  remarked  that  he  did  not 
think  it  proper  to  communicate  without  the  consent  of  the  writer.  I  an- 
swered, that,  being  informed  that  the  Marshal  of  this  District  had,  to  a 
friend  of  mine,  made  a  similar  statement  to  that  said  to  have  been  made 
by  Mr.  Crawford,  I  would  be  glad  to  see  Mr.  Crawford's  statement,  and 
desired  he  would  write  and  obtain  his  consent.  My  reasons  were,  that  I 
had,  from  the  uniform  friendly  professions  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  always  believed 
him  my  friend  in  all  this  Seminole  business;  and  I  had  a  desire  to  know  if 
in  this  I  had  been  mistaken,  and  whether  it  was  possible  for  Mr.  Calhoun 
to  have  acted  with  such  insincerity  and  duplicity  towards  me. 

I  have  enclosed  Mr.  Calhoun  a  copy  of  this  letter; 

And  am,  Sir,  with  respectful  regard, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

ANDREW  JACKSON. 

The  Hon.  John  Forsyth,  Senator  in  Congress. 


No.   9. — (Continued.) 
Mr.  Forsyth  to  General  Jackson. 

Augusta,  June  llth9  183&. 

Sir:  I  have  had  the  honor  to  receive  your  letter  of  the  7th  instant,  and  the 
copy  papers  enclosed  with  it.  The  papers  will  be  shown  to  Mr.  Crawford, 
and  no  other  use  made  of  them  by  me. 

I  did  not  intend  to  convey  to  Mr.  Calhoun  the  idea  that  any  personal  com- 
munication ever  took  place  between  us,  prior  to  the  date  of  Mr.  Crawford's 
letter,  relative  to  the  occurrences  in  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet  on  the  question 
of  the  Seminole  war.  What  I  intended  he  should  know,  and  I  suppose  will 
now  understand,  if  I  have  inadvertently  misled  him,  is,  that  I  did  not  volun- 
teer to  procure  the  information  contained  in  Mr.  Crawford's  letter,  but  that 
it  was  obtained  for  your  use  in  compliance  with  your  request.  Major  Hamil- 
ton requested  me^  in  your  name,  to  give  to  you  what  1  had  previously  given 
to  hiwi-»«-Mr.  Crawford's  account  of  the  transactkm.     With 'this  request  I 


30 

complied,  after  having  first  obtained  Mr.  Crawford's  consent,  and  received 
from  him  his  correction  of  a  mistake  I  had  made  in  repeating  his  verbal 
statement. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  &c. 

JOHN  FORSYTH. 
Gen.  Andrew  Jackson,  President  of  the  United  States. 


Augusta,  June  17,  18301 
Sir:  Gen  Jackson  having  sent  to  you  a  copy  of  his  letter  to  me  of  the 
8th  instant,  it  is  proper  that  you  should  see  the  answer  to  itj  you  will  find  a 
copy  on  the  opposite  page. 

I  am.  Sir,  with  respect, 

JOHN  FORSYTH, 
Hon.  John  C.  Calhoun. 


No.  9. — (Continued.) 
General  Jackson  to  Mr.  Calhoun. 

Washington,  June  7,  1830, 

Sir:  On  the  5th  inst.  I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Forsyth  of  the  Senate, 
requpsting  a  copy  of  your  letter  to  me  of  the  29th  of  May  last.  I  have  not 
been  able  to  perceive  any  objections  to  comply  with  his  request.  A  copy 
of  my  letter  to  him  on  this  subject,  I  have  thought  it  proper,  should  be  sen! 
to  you;  it  is  therefore  enclosed. 

I  am,  Sir,  very  respectfully, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

ANDREW  JACKSON 
The  Hon.  J.  C.  Calhoun, 

Vice-President  of  the  U.  States. 


No.  10. 

General  Jackson  to  Mr.  Calhoun. 

Hermitage,  June  19,*  183©. 

Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  22d  June  last  has  just  been  received,  via  Washing- 
i*n  city.  I  regret  that  mine  to  you  of  the  7th  of  May*  covering  a  copy  of 
one  to  Mr.  Forsyth  from  me  of  the  same  date,  had  not  reached  you,  as  it 
would  have  prevented  you  from  falling  into  the  gross  errors  you  have,  from 
the  unfounded  inferences  you  have  drawn  from  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter  to  me, 
and  would  have  informed  you  that  I  had  no  conversation  or  communication 
with  Mr.  Forsyth  on  the  subject  alluded  to,  before  the  receipt  of  the  copy 
of  Mr.  Crawford's  letter,  which  I  so  promptly  laid  before  you.  To  cor- 
rect the  errors  into  which  the  inferences  you  have  drawn  from  Mr.  For- 
syth's letter  have  led  you,  I  herewith  again  enclose  you  a  copy  of  my  letter 

*  Intended  probably  for  the  19th  Julj. 


31 

to  Mr.  Forsyth  of  the  7th  of  May,  and  his  answer  thereto  of  the  17th  June 
last,  which  I  received  on  the  8th  instant,  and  I  have  to  regret  that  any  in- 
terruption of  the  mail  prevented  your  receipt  of  mine  of  the  7th  of  May, 
which  was  mailed  the  same  time  mine  to  Mr.  Forsyth  was. 

Mr.  Forsyth  having  promised,  in  his  letter  to  me  of  the  17th  June,  that 
he  would  explain,  and  by  letter  correct  you  in  the  unjust  and  unfounded 
inferences  which  you  had  drawn  from  his  letter;  and  I  must  add  here,  for 
your  information,  that,  if  I  understood  your  other  allusions,  they  are  as 
equally  unfounded.  I  have  never  heard  it  even  intimated,  except  in  your 
letter,  that  the  individual  to  whom  I  suppose  you  allude  had  the  slightest 
knowledge  on  the  subject,  or  the  most  remote  agency  in  the  matter.  In 
conclusion,  I  repeat,  I  have  always  met  the  intimations  of  your  having 
made  before  the  cabinet,  in  secret  council,  against  me,  injurious  movements, 
with  flat  and  positive  denial,  and  brought  into  view,  by  way  of  rebutter, 
your  uniform  and  full  approval  of  my  whole  conduct  on  the  Seminole  cam- 
paign, so  far  as  I,  or  any  of  my  friends,  had  heard  you  on  the  subject;  and 
the  high  character  you  sustained  for  fair,  open,  and  honorable  conduct  in  all 
things  was  entirely  opposed  to  the  secret,  uncandid,  and  unmanly  course 
ascribed  to  you  by  those  intimations,  and  I  banished  from  my  mind  what  I 
conceived  to  be  unjust  imputations  upon  your  honor,  by  ascribing  duplicity 
to  you,  and  never,  until  after  the  intimations  were  communicated  to  me  of 
the  suggestions  of  the  Marshal,  as  stated  in  my  letter  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  (a  copy 
of  which  was  enclosed  to  you.)  It  was  then  that  I  had  a  desire  so  see  the 
statement  said  to  have  been  made  by  Mr.  Crawford,  and,  when  information 
(informed)  by  Colonel  Hamilton  that  such  statements  had  been  seen  in 
writing,  that  I  made  the  request  to  see  it,  with  the  object  of  laying  it  before 
you,  which  I  then  supposed  would  meet  your  prompt  and  positive  negative. 
But  I  regret  that  instead  of  a  negative,  which  I  had  a  right  to  expect,  I  had 
the  poignant  mortification  to  see  in  your  letter  an  admission  of  its  truth. 
Understanding  the  matter  now,  I  feel  no  interest  in  this  altercation,  and 
leave  you  and  Mr.  Crawford,  and  all  concerned,  to  settle  the  affair  in  your 
own  way,  and  now  close  this  correspondence  for  ever. 
I  am,  very  respectfully, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

ANDREW  JACKSON 

Hon.  J.  C.  Calhoun, 

Vice-President  of  the  U.  States. 


♦     ■ 


No.  11. 

Mr.  Calhoun  to  General  Jackson, 

Fort  Hill,  25th  Jlugust,  lejo. 

Sir:  I  received,  on  the  6th  instant,  your  letter  dated  the  19th  June,  faqt 
which,  I  suppose,  was  intended  for  the  19th  July,  with  its  enclosures.  On 
the  24th  of  June  I  received  the  note  of  Mr.  Forsyth,  covering  a  copy  oi 
his  letter  to  you  of  the  17th  same  month;  but,  owing  to  some  delay  in  the 
conveyance,  for  which  I  am  unable  to  account,  I  did  not  receive  your  letter 
of  the  7th  June,  covering  a  copy  of  your  letter  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  till  the  14th 
July, 


32 

You  regret  that  I  did  not  receive  your  letter  of  the  7th  June  before  I 
wrote  mine  of  the  28th  of  the  same  month,  on  the  ground,  to  use  your  own 
language,  that  it  would  have  prevented  me  "from  falling  into  the  gross  er- 
rors you  have  from  the  unfounded  inferences  you  have  drawn  from  Mr. 
Forsyth's  letter  to  me."  You  cannot  more  sincerely  regret  than  I  do  that 
any  delay  in  the  mail  deprived  me  of  the  advantage  of  the  statement  in  your 
letter  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  seeing  that  you  deemed  it  material  to  a  correct  un- 
derstanding of  the  facts;  but  I  must  say,  after  a  careful  perusal  of  your  let- 
ter to  him,  as  well  as  yours  to  myself,  I  am  utterly  at  a  loss  to  perceive  the 
"gross  errors"  of  which  you  accuse  me.  As  far  as  I  can  understand  you, 
they  seem  to  consist  in  the  supposition  that  I  inferred  from  Mr.  Forsyth's 
letter  that  you  applied  to  him  personally  to  obtain  the  information  from 
Mr.  Crawford,  of  what  took  place  in  the  cabinet  on  the  Seminole  question; 
whereas,  in  fact,  you  applied  not  to  him,  but  to  Mr.  James  Hamilton,  of  New 
York;  and  that  it  was  he,  and  not  you,  who  applied  to  Mr.  Forsyth  to  obtain 
the  information.  If  there  be  a  difference  in  principle  between  the  two  state- 
ments, I  can  only  say  that  1  am  not  responsible  for  it.  The  charge  of  "  er- 
ror" ought  to  be  made  against  Mr.  Forsyth,  and  not  me.  His  words  are: 
"  Having,  at  the  request  of  the  President  to  be  informed  what  took  place  in 
the  cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe  on  the  subject  of  the  Seminole  campaign,  laid 
before  him  a  copy  (except  the  omission  of  a  name)  of  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Crawford,  which  has  been  since  communicated  to  you,"  &c.  &c.  Now, 
Sir,  if  I  had  inferred  from  these  words,  as  you  suppose  I  did,  that  you  had 
personally  applied  to  Mr.  Forsyth  to  obtain  the  information  for  you,  I  would 
have  done  no  more  than  what  I  fairly  might,  without  the  imputation  of 
"  gross  errors. "  But  I  made  no  such  inference;  on  the  contrary,  I  have  used 
almost  the  very  words  of  Mr.  Forsyth.  My  language  is:  "  I  had  supposed, 
from  the  complexion  of  your  letters  to  me.  that  the  copy  of  Mr.  Crawford's 
letter  to  Mr.  Forsyth  had  been  placed  by  the  latter  in  your  hands,  without 
any  previous  act  or  agency  on  your  part;  but,  by  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter  to  me, 
I  am  informed  that  such  is  not  the  fact.  It  seems  that  he  acted  as  your 
agent  in  the  affair.  He  states  that  you  applied  to  him  to  be  informed  of 
what  took  place  in  the  cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe  on  the  subject  of  the  Semi- 
nole campaign."  In  my  letter  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  I  use  almost  verbatim  the 
same  language.  As  far  as  I  am  capable  of  understanding  the  force  of  words, 
my  language  does  not  vary,  in  the  smallest  degree,  in  its  sense,  from  that 
used  by  Mr.  Forsyth  in  his  letter  to  me,  and  most  certainly  does  not  more 
strongly  imply  than  his  does  that  you  applied  to  him  personally  for  the  in- 
formation. But,  suppose  I  had  fallen  into  the  "gross  errors"  of  inferring 
from  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter  that  you  had  personally  applied  to  him,  when,  in 
fact,  it  was  not  you,  but  your  agent,  James  Hamilton,  (of  New  York,)  who  ap- 
plied for  you  myour  name,&s  Mr.  Forsyth  informed  youin  his  letter  of  17th 
June,  it  requires  more  penetration  than  I  possess  to  discover  how  the  differ- 
ence can,  in  the  slightest  degree,  affect  the  only  material  question,  whether  he 
acted  as  a  mere  volunteer,  or  as  your  agent.  Mr.  Forsyth  himself  decides 
this  question.  He  tells  you  expressly,  that  he  did  not  act  as  a  volunteer;  and 
it  is  on  the  ground  that  he  acted  for  you,  and  not  for  himself,  that  I  claimed 
of  you  to  be  put  in  possession  of  certain  facts  connected  with  the  subject  of 
our  correspondence,  which  were  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Forsyth,  and 
which  I  deemed  important  to  the  full  development  of  this  affair;  but,  in- 
stead of  complying  with  so  reasonable  a  request,  you  reply,  not  by  denying 
the  justice  of  the  request,  nor  that  he  acted  for  you,  and  not  for  himself 


but  by  accusing  nie  of  "  gross  errors,"  an  assumption  on  yuur  part  at  once 

fratuitous  and  immaterial,  that  I  had  inferred  that  you  had  applied  to  Mr. 
'orsyth  personally,  when,  in  fact,  the  application  had  been  made  for  you. 
In  your  own  name,  by  Mr.  Hamilton.  I  must  say,  that  I  cannot  see  in 
your  statement  the  least  excuse  for  withholding  from  me  the  information 
requested;  and  I  am  constrained  to  add,  that  I  have  looked  in  vain  in  the 
course  which  you  have  pursued  for  the  evidence  of  that  frankness  which 
you  assured  me,  in  submitting  the  copy  of  Mr  Crawford's  letter  to  me,  has 
ever  characterised  your  conduct  towards  those  with  whom  you  had  been  in 
habits  of  friendship.  As  connected  with  this  point,  let  me  call  your  atten- 
tion to  a  fact  which  has  not  been  explained,  though  in  my  opinion  it  ought 
to  be.  It  now  appears,  that  when  Mr.  Forsyth  placed  the  copy  of  Mr. 
Crawford's  letter  in  your  hands,  he  also  placed  with  it  a  copy  of  his  letter 
referred  to  by  Mr.  Crawford.  Why  was  it  that  a  copy  of  this  letter  of 
Mr.  Forsyth  did  not  accompany  Mr.  Crawford's,  when  you  placed  a  copy 
oi  the  letter  in  my  hands?  Calling  upon  me  in  the  spirit  of  frankness  and 
friendship,  as  you  informed  me  you  did,  I  had  a  right  to  infer  that  every 
document  connected  with  the  charge,  and  in  your  possession,  calculated  to 
afford  light,  would  be  placed  in  my  possession;  and  such,  in  fact,  was  my 
impression,  but  which  I  now  find  to  be  erroneous.  It  is  with  regret  that 
I  feel  myself  bound  to  state  that  Mr.  Forsyth's  letter,  with  the  subsequent 
correspondence,  has  given  an  aspect  to  the  affair  ver}^  different  from  what 
I  received  from  your  first  letter. 

You  have  stated  some  suggestions  of  the  Marshal  of  the  District,  which 
were  communicated  to  you,  as  the  reason  wrhy  you  have  agitated  this  old 
affair  at  this  time.  You  have  not  stated  what  they  were,  to  whom  made* 
or  by  whom  communicated,  which,  of  course,  leaves  me  in  the  dark  as  to 
their  nature  or  character.  But  whatever  they  may  be,  the  course  3'ou  adopt- 
ed, considering  the  friendly  relation  which  I  had  reason  to  suppose  existed 
between  us,  is  well  calculated  to  excite  surprise.  Instead  of  applying  to  the 
Marshal,  in  order  to  ascertain  what  he  did  say,  and  from  whom  he  derived 
his  information,  and  then  submitting  his  statement  to  me,  which  course 
friendship,  and  the  high  opinion  which  you  say  you  entertained  for  my 
character  "for  fair,  open,  and  honorable  conduct  in  all  things,"  manifestly 
dictated,  you  applied  for  information,  as  to  my  conduct,  to  the  man  who, 
you  knew,  felt  towards  me  the  strongest  enmity.  I  wish  not  to  be  under- 
stood that  you  had  mere  general  information  of  his  ill-will  towards  me. 
Your  information  was  of  the  most  specific  character,  and  was  of  such  a  na- 
ture as  ought  to  have  made  you  distrust  any  statement  of  his,  calculated  to 
affect  my  reputation. 

Knowing  the  political  machinations  that  were  carrying  on  against  me, 
and  wishing  to  place  me  on  my  guard,  a  friend  of  mine  placed  in  my  hands, 
some  time  since,  a  copy  of  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  Crawford  to  a  Nashville 
correspondent  of  his  in  1827.  It  constitutes  one  of  the  many  means  re- 
sorted to  in  order  to  excite  your  suspicion  against  me.  In  it  Mr.  Craw- 
ford makes  an  abusive  attack  upon  me;  but,  not  content  with  thus  assailing 
my  character  in  the  dark,  he  offers  to  bring  into  the  market  the  influence 
which  Georgia  might  have  on  the  presidential  election,  as  a  means  whereby 
to  depress  my  political  prospects.  To  avoid  the  possibility  of  mistakes,  I 
will  give  extracts  from  the  letter  itself,  in  full  confirmation  of  what  I  have 
stated. 

Speaking  of  the  presidential  election,  Mr.  Crawford  savs  that,  "the  onlr 
S 


difficulty  that  this  State  (Georgia)  has  upon  the  subject,  (your  election*)  \s, 
'hat,  if  Jackson  should  be  elected,  Calhoun  will  come  into  power." 
Again : 

"If  you  can  ascertain  that  Calhoun  will  not  be  benefitted  by  Jackson's 
election,  you  will  do  him  a  benefit  by  communicating  the  information  to 
me.  Make  what  use  you  please  of  this  letter,  and  show  it  to  whom  you 
please." 

That  the  letter  was  clearly  intended  for  your  inspection,  cannot  be  doubt- 
ed. The  authority  to  his  correspondent  to  make  what  use  he  pleased,  and 
to  show  it  to  ivhont  he  pleased,  with  the  nature  of  the  information  sought, 
whether  I  was  to  be  benefitted  by  your  election,  which  could  only  be  de- 
rived from  yodrself }  leaves  no  doubt  on  that  point;  and  I  am  accordingly 
informed  that  you  saw  the  letter. 

A  proposition  of  the  kind,  at  that  particular  period,  when  the  presidential 
election  was  most  doubtful,  and  most  warmly  contested,  needs  no  comment 
as  to  its  object.  To  say  nothing  of  its  moral  and  political  character,  stronger 
proof  could  not  be  offered  of  the  deepest  enmity  towards  me  on  the  part  of 
the  writer,  which  at  least  ought  to  have  placed  you  on  your  guard  against  all 
attacks  on  me  from  that  quarter.  The  letter  will  not  be  denied;  but  if, 
contrary  to  expectation,  it  should,  I  stand  ready,  by  highly  respectable  au- 
thority, to  maintain  its  authenticity. 

You  well  know  the  disinterested,  open,  and  fearless  course  which  myself 
and  my  friends  were  pursuing  at  this  very  period,  and  the  weight  of  enmity 
which  it  drew  down  upon  us  from  your  opponents.  Little  did  I  then  sus- 
pect that  these  secret  machinations  were  carrying  on  against  me  at  Nash- 
ville, or  that  such  propositions  could  be  ventured  to  be  made  to  you,  or,  if 
ventured,  without  being  instantly  disclosed  to  me.  Of  this,  however,  I 
complain  not,  nor  do  I  intend  to  recriminate;  but  I  must  repeat  the  expression 
of  my  surprise,  that  you  should  apply  to  an  individual  who  you  knew,  from 
such  decisive  proof,  to  be  actuated  by  the  most  inveterate  hostility  towards 
me,  for  information  of  my  course  in  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet.  It  affords  to 
my  mind  conclusive  proof  that  you  had  permitted  your  feelings  to  be  alien- 
ated by  the  artful  movements  of  those  who  have  made  you  the  victim  of 
their  intrigue,  long  before  the  commencement  of  this  correspondence. 

Instead  of  furnishing  me  with  the  information  which  I  claimed,  in  order 
io  a  full  understanding  of  this  extraordinary  affair,  and  which  you  could  not 
iustly  withhold,  you  kindly  undertake  to  excuse  the  individual  to  whom 
vou  supposed  some  allusion  ol  mine  to  be  made.  I  know  not  to  whom  you 
refer.  I  made  no  allusion  to  any  one  particular  individual.  But,  be  that 
as  it  may,  you  must  excuse  me  if,  on  subjects  which  concern  me,  I  should 
prefer  my  judgment  to  yours,  and,  of  course,  if  I  should  not  be  satisfied  with 
your  opinion,  as  a  substitute  for  the  facts  by  which  I  might  be  able  to  form 
my  own. 

After  I  had  so  fully  demonstrated  the  candor  and  sincerity  with  which  I 
have  acted  throughout  this  affair,  I  did  not  suppose  that  you  would  reiterate 
your  former  charges;  but  having  done  so,  it  only  remains  for  me  to  repeat, 
in  the  most  positive  manner,  the  contradiction.  I  never  for  a  moment  dis- 
guised my  sentiment  on  this  or  any  other  political  subject.  Why  should  I 
in  this  instance?  I  had  violated  no  duty — no  rule  of  honor,  nor  obligation 
of  friendship.  I  did  your  motives  full  justice  in  every  stage  of  the  cabinet 
deliberation,  and,  after  a  full  investigation,  1  entirely  approved  and  heartily 
supported  the  final  decision.     In  this  course  I  was  guided,  it  is  true,  not  by 


^5 

leelmgs  of  friendship,  but  solely  by  a  sense  of  duty.     When  our  country 
is  concerned,  there  ought  to  be  room  neither  for  friendship  nor  enmity. 

You  conclude  your  letter  by  saying  that  you  understand  the  matter  now, 
that  you  feel  no  interest  in  this  altercation,  and  that  you  would  leave  me  and 
Mr.  Crawford,  and  all  concerned,  to  settle  this  affair  in  our  own  way,  and 
that  you  now  close  the  correspondence  for  ever. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  object  to  the  manner  you  may  choose  to  close  the 
correspondence  on  your  part.  On  my  part,  I  have  no  desire  to  prolong 
it  The  spectacle  of  the  first  and  second  officers  of  this  great  republic  en- 
gaged in  a  correspondence  of  this  nature,  has  no  attraction  for  me  at  any 
time,  and  is  very  far  from  being  agreeable  at  this  critical  juncture  of  our 
affairs.  My  consolation  is,  that  it  was  not  of  my  seeking;  and,  as  I  am  not 
responsible  for  its  commencement,  I  feel  no  disposition  to  incur  any  respon- 
sibility for  its  continuance.  Forced  into  it,  to  repel  unjust  and  base  impu- 
tations upon  my  character,  I  could  not  retire  in  honor  while  they  continued 
to  be  reiterated. 

Having  now  fully  vindicated  my  conduct,  I  will  conclude  the  corre- 
spondence also,  with  a  single  remark,  that  I  too  well  know  what  is  due  to 
my  rights  and  self  lespect,  in  this  unpleasant  affair,  to  permit  myself  to  be 
diverted  into  an  altercation  with  Mr.  Crawford,  or  any  other  individual, 
whom  you  may  choose  to  consider  as  concerned  in  this  affair.* 

J.  C.  CALHOUN. 

President  Jackson. 


*  Mr.  Crawford  attempted  to  open  a  correspondence  with  me  on  this  subject.  I  returned 
Ms  letter,  declining  all  correspondence  with  him,  except  through  Gen.  Jackson.  See  Appen- 
dix Q, 


APPENDIX. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  PRIVATE  CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN  MR.   MONROE  AND  GEN.   JACKSON,  ON  THE  SEMINOLE  AFFAIR*    RE 
FERRED  TO  IN  THE  LETTER  OF  THE  29TH  MAY. 


A. 

Mr.  Monroe  to  General  Jackson. 

Washington,  July  19,  1816. 

Dear  Sir:  I  received,  lately,  your  letter  of  June  2d,  by  Mr.  Hambly, 
at  my  farm  in  Loudoun,  to  which  I  had  retired  to  await  your  report,  and  the 
return  of  your  commissioners  from  Buenos  Ayres.  In  reply  to  your  letter, 
I  shall  express  myself  with  the  freedom  and  candor  which  I  have  invaria- 
bly used  in  my  communications  with  you.  I  shall  withhold  nothing  in  re- 
gard to  your  attack  of  the  Spanish  posts,  and  occupancy  of  them,  particu- 
larly Pensacola,  which  you  ought  to  know,  it  being  an  occurrence  of  the 
most  delicate  and  interesting  nature,  and  which,  without  a  circumspect  and 
cautious  policy,  looking  to  all  the  objects  which  claim  attention,  may  pro- 
duce the  most  serious  and  unfavorable  consequences.  It  is  by  a  knowledge 
of  all  the  circumstances,  and  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  whole  subject, 
that  the  danger  to  which  this  measure  is  exposed  may  be  avoided,  and  all 
the  good  which  you  have  contemplated  by  it,  as  I  trust,  be  fully  realised. 

In  calling  you  into  active  service  against  the  Seminoles,  and  communi- 
cating to  you  the  orders  which  had  been  given  just  before  to  Gen.  Gaines, 
the  views  and  intentions  of  the  Government  were  fully  disclosed  in  respect 
to  the  operations  in  Florida.  In  transcending  the  limit  prescribed  by  those 
orders,  you  acted  on  your  own  responsibility,  on  facts  and  circumstances 
which  were  unknown  to  the  Government  when  the  orders  were  given, 
many  of  which,  indeed,  occurred  afterwards,  and  which  you  thought  im- 
posed on  you  the  measure,  as  an  act  of  patriotism,  essential  to  the  honor 
and  interests  of  your  country. 

The  United  States  stand  justified  in  ordering  their  troops  into  Florida  in 
pursuit  of  their  enemy.  They  have  this  right  by  the  law  of  nations,  if  the 
Seminoles  were  inhabitants  of  another  country,  and  had  entered  Florida  to 
elude  our  pursuit.  Being  inhabitants  of  Florida,  with  a  species  of  sove- 
reignty over  that  part  of  the  territory,  and  a  right  to  the  soil,  our  right  to 
give  such  an  order  is  the  more  complete  and  unquestionable.  It  is  not  an 
act  of  hostility  to  Spain.  It  is  the  less  so,  because  her  Government  is  bound 
by  treaty  to  restrain  by  force  of  arms,  if  necessary,  the  Indians  there  from 
committing  hostilities  against  the  United  States. 

But  an  order  by  the  Government  to  attack  a  Spanish  post  would  assume 
another  character.  It  would  authorize  war,  to  which,  by  the  principles  of 
our  constitution,  the  Executive  is  incompetent.  Congress  alone  possess 
the  power.  I  am  aware  that  cases  may  occur,  where  the  commanding  ge- 
rrarah  acting  on  his  own  responsibility,  may  with  safety  pass  this  limit,  and 


37 

with  essential  advantage  to  his  country.  The  officers  and  troops  of  the 
neutral  power  forget  the  obligations  incident  to  their  neutral  character;  they 
stimulated  the  enemy  to  make  war;  they  furnished  them  with  arms  and 
munitions  of  war  to  carry  it  on;  they  take  an  active  part  in  other  respects 
in  their  favor;  they  afford  them  an  asylum  on  their  retreat.  The  general 
obtaining  victory  pursues  them  to  this  post,  the  gates  of  which  are  shut 
against  him;  he  attacks  and  carries  it,  and  rests  on  those  acts  for  his  justifi- 
cation. The  affair  is  then  brought  before  his  Government  by  the  power 
whose  post  has  been  thus  attacked  and  carried.  If  the  Government  whose 
officer  made  the  attack  had  given  an  order  for  it,  the  officer  would  have  no 
merit  in  it.  He  exercised  no  discretion,  nor  did  he  act  on  his  own  respon- 
sibility. The  merit  of  the  service,  if  there  be  any  in  it,  would  not  be  his. 
This  is  the  ground  on  which  this  occurrence  rests,  as  to  his  part.  I  will 
now  look  to  the  future. 

The  foreign  Government  demands — was  this  your  act?  or  did  you  au- 
thorize it?  I  did  not:  it  was  the  act  of  the  general.  He  performed  it  for 
reasons  deemed  sufficient  himself,  and  on  his  own  responsibility.  I  demand, 
then,  the  surrender  of  the  posts,  and  his  punishment.  The  evidence  jus- 
tifying the  conduct  of  the  American  general,  and  proving  the  misconduct 
of  those  officers,  will  be  embodied,  to  be  laid  before  the  sovereign,  as  the 
ground  on  which  their  punishment  will  be  expected. 

If  the  Executive  refused  to  evacuate  the  posts,  especially  Pensacola,  it 
would  amount  to  a  declaration  of  war,  to  which  it  is  incompetent.  It  would 
be  accused  with  usurping  the  authority  of  Congress,  and  giving  a  deep  and 
fatal  wound  to  the  constitution.  By  charging  the  offence  on  the  officers  of 
Spain,  we  take  the  ground  which  you  have  presented,  and  we  look  to  you 
to  support  it.  You  must  aid  in  procuring  the  documents  necessary  for  this 
purpose.  Those  which  you  sent  by  Mr.  Hambly  were  prepared  in  too 
much  haste,  and  do  not,  I  am  satisfied,  do  justice  to  the  cause.  This  must 
be  attended  to  without  delay. 

Should  we  hold  the  posts,  it  is  impossible  to  calculate  all  (he  consequen- 
ces likely  to  result  from  it.  It  is  not  improbable  that  war  would  immedi- 
ately follow.  Spain  would  be  stimulated  to  declare  it;  and,  once  declared, 
the  adventurers  of  Britain  and  other  countries  would,  under  the  Spa- 
nish flag,  privateer  on  our  commerce.  The  immense  revenue  which  we  now 
receive  would  be  much  diminished,  as  would  be  the  profits  of  our  valuable 
productions.  The  war  would  probably  soon  become  general;  and  we  do  not 
foresee  that  we  should  have  a  single  power  in  Europe  on  our  side.  Why 
risk  these  consequences?  The  events  which  have  occurred  in  both  the  Flo- 
ridas  show  the  incompetency  of  Spain  to  maintain  her  authority;  and  the 
progress  of  the  revolutions  in  Soutli  America  will  require  all  her  forces 
there.  There  is  much  reason  to  presume  that  this  act  will  furnish  a  strong 
inducement  to  Spain  to  cede  the  territory,  provided  we  do  not  wound  too 
deeply  her  pride  by  holding  it.  If  we  hold  the  posts,  her  government 
cannot  treat  with  honor,  which,  by  withdrawing  the  troops,  we  afford  her 
an  opportunity  to  do.  The  manner  in  which  we  propose  to  act,  will  excul- 
pate you  from  censure,  and  promises  to  obtain  all  the  advantages  which  you 
contemplated  from  the  measure,  and  possibly  very  soon.  From  a  different 
course  no  advantage  would  be  likely  to  result,  and  there  would  be  great  dan- 
ger of  extensive  and  serious  injuries,, 

I  shall  communicate  to  you,  in  the  confidence  in  which  I  write  this  letter, 
a  copy  of  the  answer  which  will  be  given  to  the  Spanish  minister,  that  you 


amy  see  distinctly  the  ground  on  which  we  rest,  in  the  expectation  that  yoti 
will  give  it  all  the  support  in  your  power.  The  answer  will  be  drawn  on 
a  view,  and  with  attention  to  the  general  interests  of  our  country,  and  its 
relations  with  other  powers. 

A  charge,  no  doubt,  will  be  made  of  abreach  of  the  Constitution;  and,  to 
such  a  charge,  the  public  feeling  will  be  alive.  It  will  be  sr>id  that  you  have 
taken  all  the  power  into  your  own  hands,  not  from  the  executive  alone,  but 
likewise  from  Congress.  The  distinction  which  I  have  made  above,  between 
the  act  of  the  Government,  refutes  that  charge.  This  act,  as  to  'he  General, 
will  be  right,  if  the  facts  on  which  he  rests  made  it  a  measure  or  necessity? 
and  they  be  well  proved.  There  is  no  war,  or  breach  of  the  Constitution, 
unless  the  Government  should  refuse  to  give  up  the  posts;  in  whicH  event,, 
should  Spain  embargo  our  vessels,  and  war  follow,  the  charge  of  suck  breach 
would  be  laid  against  the  Government  with  great  force.  The  last  imputa- 
tion to  which  I  would  consent  justly  to  expose  myself,  is  that  of  infringing 
a  Constitution,  to  the  support  of  which,  on  pure  .principles,  my  public  life 
has  been  devoted.    In  this  sentiment,  I  am  satisfied,  you  fully  concur. 

Your  letters  to  the  department  were  written  in  haste,  under  the  pressure 
of  fatigue  and  infirmity,  in  a  spirit  of  conscious  rectitude;  and,  in  conse- 
quence, with  less  attention  to  some  parts  of  their  contents  than  would  other- 
wise have  been  bestowed  on  them.  The  passage  to  which  I  particularly  al- 
lude, from  memory,  for  I  have  not  fche  letter  before  me,  is  that  in  which  you 
speak  of  incompetency  of  an  imaginary  boundary  to  protect  us  against  the 
enemy,  being  the  ground  on  which  you  bottom  all  your  measures.  This  is , 
liable  to  the  imputation  that  you  took  the  Spanish  posts  for  that  reason,  as  a  , 


measure  of  expedience,  and  not  on  account  of  the  misconduct  of  the  Spa 
nish  officers.  The  effect  of  this  and  such  passages,  besides  other  objections 
to  them,  would  be  to  invalidate  the  ground  on  which  you  stand,  and  fur- 
nish weapons  to  adversaries  who  would  be  glad  to  seize  them.  If  you 
think  proper  to  authorize  the  Secretary,  or  myself,  to  correct  those  passages, 
it  will  be  done  with  care,  though,  should  you  have  copies,  as  I  presume 
you  have,  you  had  better  do  it  yourself. 

The  policy  of  Europe  respecting  South  America  is  not  yet  settled.  A 
congress  of  the  allied  powers  is  to  be  held  this  year,  (November  is  spoken 
of,)  to  decide  that  question.  England  proposes  to  restore  the  colonies  to 
Spain  with  free  trade  and  colonial  governments.  Russia  is  less  favorable,  as 
are  all  the  others.  We  have  a  Russian  document,  written  by  order  of  the 
Emperor,  as  the  basis  of  instructions  to  his  Ministers  at  the  several  courts, 
speaking  of  the  British  proposition  favorably,  but  stating  that  it  must  be 
considered  and  decided  on  by  the  allies,  and  the  result  published,  to  pro- 
duce a  moral  effect  on  the  colonies,  on  the  failure  of  which,  force  is  spoken 
of.  The  settlement  of  the  dispute  between  Spain  and  Portugal  is  made  a  pre- 
liminary. We  partake  in  no  councils  whose  object  is  not  their  complete  in- 
dependence. Intimations  have  been  given  us  that  Spain  is  not  unwilling, 
and  is  even  preparing  for  war  with  the  United  States,  in  the  hope  of  making 
it  general,  and  uniting  Europe  against  us  and  her  colonies,  on  the  principle 
that  she  has  no  hope  of  saving  them.  Her  pertinacious  refusal  to  cede  the 
Floridas  to  us  heretofore,  though  evidently  her  interest  to  do  it,  gives  some 
coloring  to  the  suggestions.  If  we  engage  in  a  war,  it  is  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance that  our  people  be  united,  and,  with  that  view,  that  Spain  commence 
it-  and,  above  all,  that  the  Government  be  free  from  the  charge  of  con> 
roitting  a  breach  of  the  Constitution. 


3S 

I  hope  that  you  have  recovered  your  health.  You  see  that  the  state  oi 
the  world  is  unsettled,  and  that  any  future  movement  is  likely  to  be  directed 
against  us.  There  may  be  very  important  occasions  for  your  services, 
which  Will  be  relied  on.  You  must  have  the  object  in  view,  and  be  prepared 
to  render  them. 


B.  I) 

Gen.  Andrew  Tackson  to  Mr.  Monroe. 

Nashville,  August  19,  1818. 

Sir:  Your  tetter  of  the  19th  July,  apprizing  me  of  the  course  to  be  pursued 
in  relation  to  the  Floridas,  has  been  received.  In  a  future  communication, 
It  is  my  intention  to  submit  my  views  of  all  the  questions  springing  from 
the  subject,  with  the  fulness  and  caffdor  which  the  importance  of  the  topic, 
and  the  part  I  have  acted  in  it,  demand.  At  present,  I  will  confine  myself 
to  the  consideration  of  a  part  of  your  letter,  which  has  a  particular  bear- 
ing on  myself,  and  which  suems  to  have  originated  in  a  misconception  of  the 
import  of  the  order  under  which  I  have  commenced  the  Seminole  campaign. 
In  making  this  examination,  I  will  make  use  of  all  the  freedom  which  is 
courted  by  your  letter,  and  which  I  deem  necessary  to  afford  you  a  clear 
view  of  the  construction  which  was  given  to  the  order,  and  the  motives 
under  which  I  proceeded  to  execute  its  intentions. 

It  is  stated  in  the  second  paragraph  of  your  letter,  that  I  transcended  the 
limits  of  my  order,  and  that  I  acted  on  my  own  responsibility. 

To  these  two  points  I  mean  at  present  to  confine  myself.  But,  before 
entering  on  a  proof  of  their  applicability  to  my  acts  in  Florida,  allow  me 
fairly  to  state,  that  the  assumption  of  responsibility  will  never  be  shrunk 
from  when  the  public  can  thereby  be  promoted.  I  have  passed  through 
difficulties  and  exposures  for  the  honor  and  benefit  of  my  country;  and 
whenever  still,  for  this  purpose,  it  shall  become  necessary  to  assume  a  fur- 
ther liability,  no  scruple  will  be  urged  or  felt.  But  when  it  shall  be  re- 
quired of  me  to  do  so,  and  the  result  be  danger  and  injury  to  that  coun- 
try, the  inducement  will  be  lost,  and  my  consent  will  be  wanting. 

This  principle  is  held  to  be  incontrovertible,  that  an  order,  generally,  to 
perform  a  certain  service,  or  effect  a  certain  object,  without  any  specification 
of  the  means  to  be  adopted,  or  limits  to  govern  the  executive  officer,  leaves 
an  entire  discretion  with  the  officer  as  to  the  choice  and  application  of 
means,  but  preserves  the  responsibility  for  his  acts  on  the  authority  from 
which  the  order  emanated.  Under  such  an  order  all  the  acts  of  the  inferior 
are  acts  of  the  superior;  and  in  no  way  can  the  subordinate  officer  be  im- 
peached for  his  measures,  except  on  the  score  of  deficiency  in  judgment  and 
skill.     It  is  also  a  grammatical  truth,  that  the  limits  of  such  an  order  cannot 
be  transcended  without  an  entire  desertion  of  the  objects  it  contemplated; 
for  as  long  as  the  main  legitimate  design  is  kept  in  view,  the  policy  of  the 
measures  adopted  to  accomplish  it  is  alone  to  be  considered.     If  these  be 
adopted  as  the  proper  rules  of  construction,  and  we  apply  them  to  my  or- 
der of  December  26,  1817,  it  will  be  at  once  seen,  that,  both  in  descrip- 
tion and  operative  principle,  they  embrace  that  order  excatly.     The  requi- 
sitions of  the  order  are  for  the  commanding  general  to  assume  the  immedi- 


iO 

ate  command  at  fort  Scott,  to  concentrate  all  the  contiguous  and  disposable 
force  of  the  division  on  that  quarter,  to  call  on  the  executives  of  adjacent 
States  for  an  auxiliary  militia  force,  and  concludes  with  this  comprehensive 
command:  6:  With  this  view  you  may  be  prepared  to  concentrate  your 
forces,  and  adopt  the  necessary  measures  to  terminate  a  conflict,  which  it 
has  ever  been  the  desire  of  the  President,  from  motives  of  humanity,  to 
avoid,  but  which  is  now  made  necessary  by  their  settled  hostility." 

In  no  part  of  this  document  is  there  a  reference  to  any  previous  order, 
either  to  myself  or  another  officer,  with  a  view  to  point  to  me  the  measures 
thought  advisable,  or  the  limits  of  my  power  in  choosing  and  effecting  them. 
It  states  that  Gen.  Gaines  has  been  ordered  to  Amelia  island,  and  then 
proceeds  to  inform  me  that  "  subsequent  orders  have  been  given  to  General 
Gaines,  (of  which  copies  will  be  furnished  you,)  that  you  would  be  directed 
to  take  the  command,  and  directing  him  to  re-assume,  should  he  deem  the 
public  interest  to  require  it,  the  command  at  fort  Scott,  until  you  should 
arrive  there. "  Lastly,  it  mentions  that  J^he  was  instructed  to  penetrate  the 
Seminole  towns  through  the  Floridas,  provided  the  strength  of  his  com- 
mand at  Amelia  would  justify  his  engaging  in  offensive  operations.  The 
principle  determining  the  weignt  of  references,  in  subsequent  orders,  to 
instructions  previously  given,  is  well  settled.  Such  references  are  usually 
made  with  one  of  these  two  intentions — either  the  order  is  given  to  a  se- 
cond officer,  to  effect  a  certain  purpose  which  was  intended  to  be  effected  by 
another  officer,  and  the  instructions  of  the  first  are  referred  to  as  the  guide 
of  the  second;  or  the  order  contains  and  is  designed  for  an  extension  of  au- 
thority, and  only  refers  to  anterior  communications  to  give  a  full  view  of 
what  has  been  previously  attempted  and  performed.  In  the  first  case  it  is 
always  necessary  to  connect  the  different  orders  by  a  specific  provision, 
that  no  doubt  may  exist  as  to  the  extent  of  the  command;  and  thus  the 
several  requisitions  and  instructions  are  amalgamated,  and  the  limits  of  the 
agent  plainly  and  securely  established.  In  the  second,  no  such  provision  is 
necessary;  for  an  entire  discretion  in  the  choice  and  use  of  means  being 
previously  vested,  the  reference,  if  there  be  any,  is  only  descriptive  of  the 
powers  antecedently  given,  and  the  results  of  measures  attempted  under 
such  specifical  limitation.  But  admitting,  that,  in  my  order  of  December  26, 
1817,  there  is  such  a  reference  as  I  contemplated  in  the  first  case,  allow 
me  to  examine  its  character  and  amount.  It  is  stated  that  "  orders  have 
been  given  to  General  Gaines,  (copies  of  which  will  be  furnished  you,)"  but 
without  affirming  that  they  are  to  be  considered  as  binding  on  me,  or  in  any 
way  connected  with  the  comprehensive  command  that  I  should  terminate 
the  Seminole  conflict.  On  the  contrary,  so  far  are  they  from  being  desig- 
nated as  my  guide  and  limits  in  entering  Florida,  that,  in  stating  their  sub- 
stance in  the  ensuing  sentence,  no  allusion  whatever  is  made  either  to  means 
or  limitation. 

How,  Ihen,  can  it  be  said  with  propriety  that  I  have  transcended  the 
limits  of  my  orders,  or  acted  on  my  own  responsibility?  My  order  was 
as  comprehensive  as  it  could  be,  and  contained  neither  the  minute  original 
instructions,  or  a  reference  to  others  previousl)'  given,  to  guide  and  govern 
me.  The  fullest  discretion  was  left  with  me  in  the  selection  and  application 
of  means  to  effect  the  specifical  legitimate  objects  of  the  campaign;  and  for 
the  exercise  of  a  sound  discretion  on  principles  of  policy  am  I  alone  respon- 
sible. But  allow  me  to  repeat,  that  responsibility  is  not  feared  by  me,  if 
the  general  good  requires  its  assumption.     I  never  have  shrunk  from  it- 


41   ' 

arret  never  will;  but  against  its  imposition  on  me  contrary  to  principle,  ail$ 
without  the  prospect  of  any  politic  result,  I  must  contend  with  all  the  feel- 
ings of  a  soldier  and  a  citizen.  Being  advised  that  you  are  at  your  country 
seat  in  Loudoun,  where  I  expect  this  will  reach  you,  I  enclose  you  a  copy  of 
the  order  to  me  of  the  26th  December,  1817,  and  copies  of  the  orders  of* 
General  Gaines  therein  referred  to;  from  a  perusal  of  which  you  will  per- 
ceive that  the  order  to  me  has  no  reference  to  those  prohibitory  orders  to 
General  Gaines  that  you  have  referred  to. 

It  will  afford  me  pleasure  to  aid  the  Government  in  procuring  any  testi- 
mony that  may  be  necessary  to  prove  the  hostility  of  the  officers  of  Spain  to 
the  United  States.  I  had  Supposed  that  the  evidence  furnished  had  esta- 
blished that  fact-^that  the  officers  of  Spain  had  identified  themselves  with 
our  enemy,  and  that  St.  Mark's  and  Pensacola  were  under  the  complete  con- 
trol of  the  Indians,  although-  the  Governor  of  Pensacola  at  least  had  force 
sufficient  to' have  controlled  the  Indians,  had  he  chosen  to  have  Used  it  in  that 
Way.  For  the  purpose  of  procuring  the  necessary  evidence  of  the  hostile 
acts  of  the  Governor  of  Pensacola,  I  despatched  Captain  Young,  topographical 
engineer,  and  as  soon  as  obtained  will  be  furnished  you.  I  trust,  on  a  view 
of  all  my  communications,  (copies  of  which  have  been  forwarded  by  Capt. 
Gadsden,)  you  will  find  that  they  do  not'  bear  the  construction  you  have 
given  thenv.  They  Were  written  under  bad  health,  great  fatigue,  and  in 
ftaste.     My  bad  health  continues:  I*  labor  under  great  bodily  debility. 

Accept  assurances  of  my  sincere  regard  and  esteem;  and  am,  respectfully. 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

ANDREW  JACKSON 

James  Monroe,  President  U.  &\ 


C. 

James  Monroe  to  Gen.  Jlndreiv  Jackson. 

Washington,  October  20,  ISIS. 

Dear  Sir:  I  received  your  letter  of  the  19th  of  August,  while  I  was  at 
jiome,  on  my  farm  in  Albemarle;  and  there  appearing  to  be  no  necessity  for 
giving  it  an  immediate  answer,  I  delayed  it  until'my  return  here. 

I  was  sorry  to  find  that'  you  understood  your  instructions  relative  to  opera- 
tions in  Florida  differently  from  what  we  intended.  I  was  satisfied,  however, 
that  you  had  good  reason  for  your  conduct,  and  have  acted  irr  all  things  on 
that  principle.  By  supposing  that  you  understood  them;  as  we  did,  I  con- 
eluded  that  you  proceeded  on  your  own  responsibility  alone,  in  which,  know^ 
ing  the  purity  of  your  motives,  I  have  done  all  that  I  could  to  justify  the 
measure.  I  Well  knew,  also,  the  misconduct  of  the  Spanish1  authorities  in 
that  quarter,  not  of  recent  date  only. 

Finding  that  you  had  a  different  view  of  your  power,  itremainSonly  to  do' 
justice  to  you  on  that  ground.     Nothing  can  be  further  from  my  intention 
than  to  expose  youto  a  responsibility,  in  any  sense,  which  yoii  did  not  con- 
template. 

The  best  Course  to  be-  pursued  seems  to  me  to  be  for  you  to  write  a  let- 
ter to  the  Department,   in  which  von  wf>l  state,  that,  having,  reason  to  thinfcS 


42 

that  a  difference  of  opinion  existed  between  you  and  the  Executive,  relative 
to  the  extent  of  your  powers,  you  thought  it  due  to  youryeif  to  state  your 
view  of  them,  and  on  which  you  acted.  This  will  be  answered,  so  as  to 
explain  ours,  in  a  friendly  manner  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  who  has  very  just 
and  liberal  sentiments  on  the  subject.  This  will  be  necessary  in  the  case  of 
a  call  for  papers  by  Congress,  or  may  be.  Thus  we  shall  all  stand  on  the 
ground  of  honor,  each  doing  justice  to  the  other,  which  is  the  ground  on 
which  we  wish  to  place  each  other. 

I  hope  that  your  health  is  improved,  and  Mrs.  Monroe  unites  in  her  best 
respects  to  Mrs.  Jackson. 

«  With  great  respect  and  sincere  regard, 

I  am  dear  Sir,  yours, 

JAMES  MONROE 
Major  Gen.  A.  Jackson,  Nashville,  Tennessee. 


D. 

Extract  from  General  Jackson's  let ler  of  November  15,  1818,  to  Mr 

Monroe. 

"Dear  Sir:  On  my  return  from  the  Chickasaw  treaty,  I  found  it  neces- 
sary to  pass  by  Milton's  Bluff,  where  I  had  established  some  hands  for  the 
culture  of  cotton,  hearing  it  had  been  laid  out  for  a  town  and  the  lots  sold, 
to  have  as  much  of  my  crop  preserved  as  existing  circumstances  would  per- 
mit. From  thence  I  took  Huntsville  in  my  route,  and  did  not  reach  the. 
Hermitage  until  the  12th  instant,  and  on  the  13th  received  your  letter  of 
the  20th  ult. ;  from  an  attentive  perusal  of  which,  I  have  concluded  that  you 
have  not  yet  seen  my  despatches  from  Fort  Gadsden,  of  the  5th  of  May  last, 
which  it  is  reported  reached  the  Department  of  War  by  due  course  of  mail, 
and  owing  to  the  negligence  of  the  clerks  was  thrown  aside  as  a  bundle  of 
revolutionary  and  pension  claims.  This  I  sincerely  regret,  as  it  would  have 
brought  to  your  view  the  light  in  which  I  viewed  my  orders.  The  closing 
paragraph  of  that  despatch  is  in  the  following  words: 

"I  trust,  therefore,  that  the  measures  which  have  been  adopted  in  pursu- 
ance of  your  instructions,  under  a  firm  conviction  that  they  alone  are  calcu- 
lated to  ensure  peace  and  security  to  the  southern  frontier  of  Georgia. " 

The  moment,  therefore,  that  you  assume  the  ground  that  I  transcend  my 
power,  the  letter  referred  to  above  will,  at  once,  unfold  to  your  mind  the 
view  I  had  taken  of  them,  and  make  manifest  the  difference  of  opinion  that 
exists.  Indeed,  there  are  no  data  at  present  upon  which  such  a  letter  as  you 
wish  written  to  the  Secretary  of  War  can  be  bottomed.  I  have  no  ground 
that  a  difference  of  opinion  exists  between  the  Government  and  myself,  rela- 
tive to  the  powers  given  me  in  my  orders,  unless  I  advert  either  to  your 
private  and  confidential  letters,  or  the  public  prints,  neither  of  which  can  be 
made  the  basis  of  an  official  communication  to  the  Secretary  of  War.  Had 
I  ever,  or  were  I  now  to  receive  an  official  letter  from  the  Secretary  of  War, 
explanatory  of  the  light  in  which  it  was  intended  by  the  Government  that 
my  orders  should  be  viewed,  I  would  with  pleasure  give  my  understanding 
oi  them." 


43 

E. 

General  Jackson  to  James  Monroe. 

Hermitage,  near  Nashville, 

December  7,  18 IS. 

Dear  Sir:  Ihavejust  received  your  message  to  both  Houses  of  Congress, . 
forwarded   by  you,  and  have  read  it  with  great  attention  and  satisfaction. 
The  Florida  question  being  now  fairly  before  Congress,   I  hope  that  body 
will  take  measures  to  secure  our  southern  frontier  from  a  repetition  of  mas- 
sacre and  murder. 

From  the  report  of  Col.  King,  received  and  forwarded  to  the  Department 
of  War,  you  will  discover  that  the  Indians  had  concentrated  their  forces  on 
the  Choctaw  Hotchy,  which  gave  rise  to  the  affair  between  them  and  Captain 
Boyles,  which  Col.  King  reports. 

The  collection  of  the  Indians  is  said  to  have  taken  place  at  this  point  on 
their  hearing  that  Pensacola  was  to  be  restored  to  Spain,  and  that  the  In- 
dians have  declared  they  will  never  submit  to  the  United  States.  If  this  be 
the  fact,  and  as.  to  myself  I  have  no  doubt,  as  soon  as  Spain  is  in  possession 
of  Pensacola,  we  may  expect  to  hear  pi  a  renewal  of  all  the  horrid  scenes 
of  massacre  on  our  frontier  that  existed  before  the  campaign,  unless  Captain 
Boyles,  on  his  second  visit,  may  be  fortunate  enough  to  destroy  this  opera- 
tion, which  you  may  rely  springs  from  foreign  excitement. 

Col.  Sherburne,  Chickasaw  agent,  requested  me  to  name  to  you,  that  he 
was  wearied  with  his  situation,  of  which  I  have  no  doubt:  his  age  and  former 
habits  of  life  but  little  calculated  him  for  happiness  amidst  a  savage  nation. 
But  being  dependent  for  the  support  of  himself  and  sister  on  the  perquisites 
of  his  office,  he  cannot  resign;  but  it  would  be  a  great  accommodation  to  him 
to  be  transferred  to  Newport,  should  a  vacancy  in  any  office  occur  that  he 
was  competent  to  fill.  I  have  no  doubt  but  he  is  an  amiable  old  man;  and 
from  his  revolutionary  services,  I  sincerely  feel  for  him.  He  is  unacquaint- 
ed with  Indians,  and  all  business  that  relates  to  them;  but  at  the  treaty,  as 
soon  as  he  did  understand  our  wishes  and  that  of  the  Government,  he  aided 
us  with  all  his  might.  The  Colonel  never  can  be  happy  amidst  the  Indians. 
It  would  afford  me  great  pleasure  to  hear  that  the  Colonel  was  comfortably 
seated  in  an  office  in  Newport,  where  he  could  spend  his  declining  years  in 
peace  and  happiness  with  his  own  countrymen  and  friends. 

Accept  assurances  of  my  high  respect  and  esteem,  and  believe  me  to  be, 
respectfully,  your  most  obedient  servant, 


James  Monroe, 

President  of  the  United  States. 


ANDREW  JACKSOK 


Mr.  Monroe  to  General  Jackson. 

Washington,  December  21,  1830. 
Dear  Sir:  I  received  your  letter  of  November  13  some  time  past,  and 
should  have  answered  it  sooner  but  for  the  great  pressure  of  business  on  me, 
proceeding  from  duties  connected  with  the  measures  of  Congress. 


44 

lihe  step  suggested  iu  mine  to  you  of  October  20  will,  I  am  inclined  to 
believe,  be  unnecessary.  My  sole  object  in  it  was  to  enable  you  to  place 
your  view  of  the  authority  under  which  you  acted  in  Florida  on  the  strong- 
est ground  possible,  so  as  to  do  complete  justice  to  yourself.  I  was  persuad- 
ed that  you  had  not  done  yourself  justice  in  that  respect,  in  your  correspond- 
ence with  the  Department,  and  thought  that  it  would  be  better  that  the  ex- 
planation should  commence  with  you,  than  be  invited  by  the  Department. 
It  appeared  to  me  that  that  would  be  the  most  delicate  course  in  regard  to 
yourself.  There  is,  it  is  true,  nothing  in  the  Department  to  indicate  a  dif- 
ference of  opinion  between  you  and  the  Executive,  respecting  the  import  of 
your  instructions,  and  for  that  reason,  that  it  would  haye  been  difficult  to 
have  expressed  that  sentiment  without  implying  by  it  a  censure  on  your  con- 
duct, than  which  nothing  could  be  more  remote  from  our  disposition  or  in- 
tention. 

On  reviewing  your  communication  by  Captain  Gadsden,  there  were  three 
objects  pre-eminently  in  view:  the  first,  to  preserve  the  Constitution  from 
injury;  the  second,  to  deprive  Spain  and  the  allied  powers  of  any  just  cause 
of  war;  and  the  third,  to  improve  the  occurrence  to  the  best  advantage  of 
the  country,  and  of  the  honor  of  those  engaged  in  it.  In  every  step  which  I 
have  since  taken,  I  have  pursued  those  objects  with  the  utmost  zeal*  and 
according  to  my  best  judgment.  In  what  concerns  you  personally,  I  have 
omitted  nothing  in  my  power  to  do  you  justice,  nor  shall  I  in  the  sequel. 

The  decision  in  the  three  great  points  above  stated,  respecting  the  course  to 
be  pursued  by  the  administration,  was  unanimously  concurred  in;  and  I 
have  good  reason  to  believe  that  it  has  been  maintained  since,  in  every  par- 
ticular, by  all,  with  perfect  integrity.  It  wiH  he  gratifying  to  you  to  know 
that  a  letter  of  instructions  has  been  drawn  by  the  Secretary  of  State  to  our 
Minister-at  Madrid,  in  reply  to  a  letter  of  Mr.  Pizzaro,  which  has  been  pub- 
lished, in  which  all  the  proceedings  in  Florida,  and  in  regard  to  it,  have 
been  freely  reviewed,  and  placed  in  a  light  which  will,  I  think,  be  satisfac- 
tory to  all.  This  letter  will  be  reported  to  Congress  in  a  few  days,  and 
published  of  course. 

On  one  circumstance  it  seems  proper  that  I  should  now  give  you  an  ex- 
planation. Your  letter  of  January  6  was  received  while  I  was  seriously 
indisposed.  Observing  that  it  was  from  you,  I  handed  it  to  Mr  Calhoun  to 
read,  after  reading  one  or  two  lines,  only,  myself.  The  order  to  you  to 
take  the  command  in  that  quarter  had  before  then  been  issued.  He  re- 
marked, after  perusing  the  letter,  that  it  was  a  confidential  one,  relating  to 
Florida,  which  1  must  answer.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  forwarded  to  you  the 
orders  of  Gen.  Gaines  on  that  subject.  He  replied  that  he  had.  Your  let- 
ter to  me,  with  many  others  from  friends,  was  put  aside,  in  consequence  of 
my  indisposition  and  the  great  pressure  on  me  at  the  time,  and  never  re- 
curred to  until  after  my  return  from  Loudoun,  on  the  receipt  of  yours  by 
Mr.  H^nbly,  and  then  on  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Calhoun. 


G. 

George  McDuffie  to  Mr.  Calhoun. 

Washington,  May  14th,  1830. 

Dear  Sir:  In  answer  to  the  inquiries  contained  in  your  note  of  this  morn- 
ing, I  submit  the  following  statement     I  very  distinctly  recollect  to  have 


J 


45 

'heard  Mr.  Crawford  (I  think  in  the  summer  of  1818)  in  conversation  with 
Eldred  Simpkins,  Esq.  relative  to  the  proceedings  of  Gen.  Jackson  in  the 
Seminole  war,  and  to  the  course  pursued  by  the  cabinet,  touching  those 
proceedings.  Mr.  Crawford  spoke  without  any  kind  of  reserve  as  to  the 
respective  parts  taken  by  the  different  members  of  the  cabinet  while  the 
subject  was  under  deliberation.  He  stated  that  you  had  been  in  favor  of  an 
inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  Gen.  Jackson,  and  that  he  was  the  only  mem- 
ber of  the  cabinet  that  had  concurred  with  you.  He  spoke  in  strong  terms 
of  disapprobation  of  the  course  pursued  by  Gen.  Jackson,  not  only  in  his 
military  proceedings,  but  in  prematurely  bringing  the  grounds  of  his  defence 
before  the  country,  and  forestalling  public  opinion,  thus  anticipating  the  ad- 
ministration. On  this  point  he  remarked,  that  if  the  administration  could 
not  give  direction  to  public  opinion,  but  permitted  a  military  officer,  who 
had  violated  his  orders,  to  anticipate  them,  they  had  no  business  to  be  at 
Washington,  and  had  better  return  home,  I  also  remember  that  the  National 
Intelligencer,  which  was  lying  on  the  sofa  where  Mr.  Crawford  was  sitting, 
contained^an  article  explanatory  of  the  grounds  upon  which  the  administra- 
tion had  proceeded  in  regard  to  Gen.  Jackson's  military  movements.  Mr. 
Crawford  adverted  to  some  part,  of  the  article,  which  laid  down  a  principle 
of  the  law  of  nations,  if  I  mistake  not,  which  went  to  show  that  a  neutral 
territory  could  only  be  invaded  in  fresh  pursuit  of  an  enemy,  and  added, 
"Mr.  Adams  denies  all  that."  He  represented  Mr.  Adams  as  going  much 
further  in  justifying  Gen.  Jackson  than  even  Mr.  Monroe,  stating  that  the 
latter  was  induced  to  pass  over  the  conduct  of  Gen.  Jackson  without  public 
censure,  not  from  a  belief  that  he  had  not  violated  his  orders  and  exceeded 
his  power,  but  from  political  considerations  connected  with  our  relations 
-with  Spain. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

GEO.  MeDUFFIIJ. 


H. 

^Extract  of  a  letter  from  the  Honorable  Robert  S.  Gar  net  t,  formerly  a 
Member  of  Congress  from  the  State  of  Virginia ,  dated  Tappahannock, 
January  12,  1831. 

"My  dear  sir:  A  very  extraordinary  letter  I  have  seen  in  the  Constitu- 
tional Whig,  purporting  to  give  a  correct  account  of  the  part  which  the 
several  members  of  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet  took  when  the  conduct  of  General 
Jackson  was  before  them,  has  induced  me  to  offer  you  the  following  state- 
ment. 

"Soon  after  Colonel  Taylor's  election  to  the  Senate,  and  arrival  at  the 
seat  of  Government,  we  paid  a  visit  to  Mr.  Monroe,  and,  in  the  course  of 
fiie  day,  Col.  T.  desired  Mr.  M.  to  give  him  some  account  of  the  course 
that  had  been  pursued  towards  General  Jackson  in  regard  to  the  Seminole 
war,  &c.  In  this  conversation,  Mr.  Monroe  declared  that  there  had  been  no 
division  in  his  cabinet,  as  to  the  course  which  should  be  pursued  towards  the 
General.  This  excited  my  astonishment,  because,  in  a  conversation  with 
Mr.  Crawford,  either  before  the  debate  commenced,  or  while  it  was  pend- 
ing, Mr.  Crawford  had  used  this  expression  to  me — «  General  Jackson  ought 
to  be  condemned.'     J  noted  this  expression  down  in  a- journal  I  kept,  and 


46 

subsequently  repeated  it  frequently.  Mr.  C.  Beverly  told  me  that  lie  had 
mentioned  it  to  General  Jackson,  when  he  was  at  his  house  in  Tennessee, 
.and,  I  think,  said  that  the  General  expressed  much  surprise. 

"Hon.  J.  C.  Calhoun." 


Extract  from  Mr.  Garnet t's  diary  for  the  1st  February,  1819,  referred 

to  above. 

Ci  The  night  before  last,  Colonel  Taylor  proposed  we  should  go  up  and  see 
the  President,  as  Everett  said  he  frequently  complained  of  our  not  going, 
though  we  lived  so  near.  Newton  would  not  go,  because  he  had  to  shave 
and  put  on  a  clean  shirt.  We  found  him  in  the  drawing  room,  with  Hay, 
Everett,  Moore,  and  Findlay.  M.  and  F.  and  E.  soon  went  out,  and  so  did 
Hay,  who  was  going  to  Secretary  Thompson's.  The  President  then  talked 
very  freely  about  public  affairs — gave  us  an  account  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  Government  in  relation  to  the  Seminole  war.  He  stated  what  I  have  fre- 
quently heard  before,  that  the  whole  cabinet  were  perfectly  agreed  that  he 
should  not  censure  General  Jackson.  It  is,  however,  well  understood  that 
Mr.  Crawford,  out  of  the  cabinet,  used  his  endeavor  to  have  Cobb's  resolu- 
tions passed;  and  I  could  not  forbear  telling  the  President,  that,  in  conversa- 
tion with  me  about  Cobb?s  resolutions,  while  they  were  pending,  Mr.  Craw- 
ford said  Jackson  ought  to  be  censured.  He  expressed  surprise,  and  seem* 
ed  to  look  regret.  He  says  the  members  of  the  cabinet  are  still  in  har- 
znjony  among  themselves,  apparently. 


John  C.  Calhoun  to  Mr,  Monroe, 

Washington,  May  17,  1830. 
Dear  Sir:  It  has  become  important  to  me,  in  consequence  of  a  recenf 
circumstance,  to  ascertain  whether  Gen.  Jackson's  letter  to  you  of  the  6th 
January,  1818 — I  mean  the  one  in  which  allusion  is  made  to  Mr.  J.  Rhea — ' 
was  seen,  when  received,  by  any  one  except  myself,  and,  if  it  was,  by  whom 
I  will  thank  you  to  inform  me  by  the  return  mail;  and,  also,  whether  the  let- 
ter above  alluded  to  was  before  the  cabinet,  or  was  alluded  to  by  any  of  its 
members,  during  the  deliberation  on  the  Seminole  affair. 

With  sincere  regard, 

I  am,  &c.  &c. 

J.  C.  CALHOUN 
J.  Monroe,  Esq. 


K. 

James  Monroe  to  John  C.  Calhoun. 

Oak  Hill,  May  19,  1830. 
1)ear  Sir:  I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  17th,  and  hasten  to  answer 
it.    I  well  remember,  that,  when  I  received  the  letter  from  General  Jackson* 


47 

lb"  which  you  allude,  of  the  16th  of  January y  1818,  I  was  sick  in  bed,  ancT 
could  not  read  it.  You  were  either  present,  or  came  in  immediately  after- 
wards, and  I  handed  it  to  you  for  perusal.  After  reading  it,  you  replaced 
it,  with  a  remark  that  it  required  my  attention,  or  would  require  an  answer; 
but  without  any  notice  of  its  contents.  Mr.  Crawford  came  in  soon  after- 
wards, and  I  handed  it  also  to  him  for  perusal.  He  read  it,  and  returned  it 
in  like  manner,  without  making  any  comment  on  its  contents,  further  than 
that  it  related  to  the  Seminole  war,  or  something  to  that  effect.  I  never 
showed  it  to  any  other  person,  and  I  am  not  certain  whether  it  was  he  or 
you  who  observed  that  it  related  to  the  Seminole  war.  Having  made  all 
the  arrangements  respecting  that  war,  and  being  some  time  confined  by  indis- 
position, the  letter  was  laid  aside  and  forgotten  by  me,  and  I  never  read  it 
until  after  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  and  then  I  did  it  on  an  intimation 
from  you  that  it  required  my  attention.  You  ask  whether  that- letter  was 
before  the  cabinet  in  the  deliberation  on  the  despatches  received  from  the 
General,  communicating  the  result  of  that  war,  or  alluded  to  by  any  mem- 
ber in  the  administration.  My  impression  decidedly  is,  that  it  was  not  be- 
fore the  cabinet,  nor  do  I  recollect  or  think  that  it  was  alluded  to  in  the 
deliberation  on  the  subject.  Had  it  been,  I  could  not,  I  presume,  have  for- 
gotten it.  I  received  the  despatches  referred  to  here,  and  had  made  up  my 
mind  before  I  left  home  as  to  the  part  I  ought  to  take  in  reference  to  its 
management,  especially  if  I  should  be  supported  in  the  opinion  formed  by 
the  administration.  That  support  was  afforded  it,  and  I  pursued  the  course 
which  my  judgment  dictated,  with  a  view  to  the  honor  and  interest  of  my 
country,  and  the  honor  of  the  General  who  commanded. 

With  sincere  regard,  I  am,  dear  Sir,  yours, 

JAMES  MONROE. 
Hon.  J.  C.  Caxhoun. 


L. 

John  C.  Calhoun  to  Mr.  Wirt. 

Washington,  May  28,  1830. 
Dear  Sir:  Circumstances  which  I  need  not  explain  render  it  necessary 
for  me,  in  self  defence,  to  call  on  you  for  a  statement  of  my  course  in  the 
meeting  of  the  cabinet,  in  the  summer  of  1818,  on  the  Seminole  war.  I 
wish  you  also  to  state,  whether  a  private  letter  from  Gen.  Jackson  to  Mr. 
Monroe,  such  as  discovered  in  the  enclosed  extract  of  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Crawford  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  was  before  the  cabinet  during  the  deliberation,  or 
whether  any  allusion  was  made  to  any  letter  of  that  description. 

With  sincere  regard, 

I  am,  &c.  &c. 


Hon.  Mr.  Wirt. 


J.  C.  CALHOUN; 


M. 

Mr.  Wirt  to  Mr.  Calhoun. 

Washington,  May  28,  1830. 
Dear  Sir:  Your  letter  of  yesterday  relates  to  a  meeting  of  the  cabinet  in 
the  summer  of  1818,  relative  to  the  Seminole  war.     I  should  not  feel  my- 


)  48 

self  at  liberty  to  disclose  the  proceeding  of  any  cabinet  meeting  without  ttte' 
concurrence  of  the  President  and  of  all  the  members  who  attended  it;  but 
as  your  inquiry  relates  to  your  own  course  only,  and  I  can  speak  of  that 
without  involving  any  one  else,  I  see  no  impropriety  in  doing  so  at  »your 
request.  Among  other  ideas  thrown  out  for  consideration,  according  to  the 
usual  course  of  cabinet  consultations,  I  think  that,  at  the  first  meeting,  you 
suggested  the  propriety  of  an  inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  the  commanding, 
general;  but  I  remember  that  the  course  ultimately  adopted  Lad  your  hearty 
concurrence;  and  I  remember  it  the  more  distinctly  because  you  mentioned 
it  repeatedly  to  me  afterwards,  as  a  striking  evidence  of  the  practical  wis- 
dom of  the  President,  who  suggested  it.  Thus  much  I  feel  myself  autho- 
rized by  the  call  to  say  of  those  deliberations.  The  circumstances  mention- 
ed in  the  extract  you  enclose,  purporting  to  be  an  "  extract  of  a  letter  from 
W.  H.  Crawford",  Esq.  to  John  Forsyth,  Esq;,  dated  April  30,  1S30," 
have  no  place  in  my  recollection.  The  letter  frOm  General  Jackson  to 
President  Monroe,  therein  mentioned,  is  entirely  new  to  me.  According 
to  the  description  of  the  letter,  given  of  it  in  the  extract,  it  is  one  of  so  singu- 
lar a  character,  that,  if  it  had  been  exhibited  at  any  meeting  at  Which  I  was 
present,  I  think  that  1  could  not  have  forgotten  it.  The  occurrence  is  said 
to  have  taken  place  twelve  years  ago.  I  kept  no  notes  in  writing  of  any  o£ 
those  deliberations,  and  am  speaking  merely  from  memory.  But  still  I 
think,  that  if  such  a  letter  had  been  produced  and  read  in  my  presence,  I 
should  have  retained  some  recollection  of  it;  whereas  it  strikes  me,  in  the 
description,  as  a  thing  perfectly  new,  and  of  which  I  never  heard  before. 
In  the  close  of  the  extract,  the  writerjsays:  ''After  that  letter  was  produced? 
I  should  have  opposed  the  infliction  of  punishment  upon  the  general,  who 
had  considered  the  silence  of  the  President  as  a  tacit  consent."  I  have  no 
recollection  that  punishment  had  been  proposed  by  any  one,  unless  an  in- 
quiry into  the  official  conduct  of  the  general  can  be  regarded  as  punish* 
merit.  It  strikes  me,  too,  that  if  that  letter  had  been  produced,  and  Mr,- 
Crawford  had  placed  his  implied  charge  of  opinion  on  the  inference  of  ac- 
quiescence whieh  he  supposed  the  general  to  be  authorized  to  draw  from 
the  President's  silence,  it  could-  not  have  escaped  observation,  and  such  a 
discussion  as  would  have  tended  to  have  fixed  the  occurrence  on  my  memo- 
ry, that  the  general  had  not  asked  the  President  for  an  acquiescence  to  be  in- 
ferred from  silence,  but  for  a  positive  hint  of  his  approbation  through 
"some  confidential  member  of  Congress,  say  Johnny  Ray."  Upon  the 
whole,  Sir,  if  these  things  did  really  occur  in  my  presence,  I  can  only  sa}?: 
mat  they  have  left  not  the  slightest  trace  on  my  memory. 

I  remain,  very  respectfully, 
Your  obedient  servant, 

WM.   WIRT 
The  Hen.  John  C.  Calhoun, 

Vice  President  U.  S. 


N. 

Copy  of  a  tetter  to  Mr.  Adams,  12th  January,  1831. 

Washington,  \2th  Jan.  1831* 
,     Sir:  A  short  time  before  the  last  adjournment  of  Congress,  a  copy  of  a 
Tfreer  from  Mr.  Crawford  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  in- relation  to  the  deliberation  of 


49 

the  cabinet  on  the  Seminole  question,  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  General 
Jackson,  and  became  the  subject  of  a  correspondence  between  him  and  my- 
self. In  the  course  of  that  correspondence,  it  became  necessary,  in  order 
to  ascertain  the  truth  or  error  of  some  of  the  statements  made  by  Mr. 
Crawford,  to  refer  to  some  of  the  other  members  of  the  cabinet,  and  I  ac- 
cordingly addressed  notes  to  Mr.  Monroe  and  Mr.  Wirt,  from  both  of 
whom  I  obtained  statements.  In  selecting  those  gentlemen,  instead  of  your- 
self and  Mr.  Crowninshield,  I  was  not  in  the  least  degree  influenced  by  any 
want  of  confidence  in  either  of  you,  but  simply  by  feelings  of  delicacy 
growing  out  of  political  relations,  vand  which  I  trust  to  corresponding  feel- 
ings on  your  part  properly  to  appreciate. 

I  learn  by  a  letter  from  Mr.  Crawford,  addressed  to  me  subsequent  to  the 
close  of  my  correspondence  with  Gen.  Jackson,  that  he  has  written  to  you, 
and  obtained  your  answer  on  the  subject  to  which  it  refers,  though  he  has 
not  furnished  me  with  a  copy  of  his  letter  to  you,  nor  that  of  your  answer. 

This  step  on  his  part  has,  of  course,  removed  the  delicacy  which  I  at  first 
felt,  and  which  then  prevented  me  from  addressing  you. 

The  part  I  took  in  the  cabinet  deliberation  was  dictated  by  a  sense  of 
duty,  uninfluenced  by  either  the  feelings  of  friendship  or  enmity.  That 
Gen.  Jackson  transcended  his  orders  in  taking  St.  Mark's  and  Pensacola,  I 
have  never  doubted,  then  or  since.  In  my  opinion,  the  Executive  neither 
did  or  could  constitutionally  give  orders  to  take  either  of  those  places,  or 
any  other  Spanish  post.  Under  this  impression,  I  was  decidedly  in  favor, 
in  the  early  stage  of  the  deliberation,  of  bringing  the  subject  before  a  court 
of  inquiry,  but  finally  yielded  my  opinion  to  considerations  growing  out  of 
the  political  aspect  of  the  question,  as  connected  with  Spain,  which  were 
presented  by  you  and  Mr.  Monroe;  but,  in  yielding  to  them,  I  still  believedx 
and  do  now,  that,  apart  from  them,  and  considered  under  the  military  aspect 
of  the  subject,  as  at  first  view,  my  opinion  was  correct. 

Having  thus  concurred  in  the  final  decision  of  the  cabinet,  I  gave  it  a 
faithful  support,  without  however  abandoning  the  correctness  of  my  first 
conceptions.  I  make  this  preliminary  statement  in  order  that  you  may  per- 
ceive why  my  inquiry  should  be  directed  only  to  what  might  seem  a  mere 
collateral  circumstance,  whether  the  letter  of  Gen.  Jackson  to  Mr.  Monroe, 
in  which  allusion  is  made  to  John  Ray,  was  before  the  cabinet,  which, 
though  not  calculated  to  affect  the  question  of  the  correctness  of  my  course, 
however  decided,  from  the  prominence  that  Mr.  Crawford  has  given  it,  has 
assumed  no  small  degree  of  importance  in  the  correspondence.  He,  in  his 
letter  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  says:  *<  Indeed  my  own  views  on  the  subject  had 
undergone  a  material  change  after  the  cabinet  had  been  convened.  Mr. 
Calhoun  made  some  allusion  to  a  letter  the  General  had  written  the  Presi- 
dent, who  had  forgotten  that  he  had  received  such  a  letter,  but  said,  if  he 
had  received  such  an  one,  he  could  find  it,  and  went  directly  to  his  cabinet, 
and  brought  the  letter  out.  In  it  Gen.  Jackson  approved  of  the  determina- 
tion of  the  President  to  break  up  Amelia  island  and  Galveztown,  and 
gave  it  also  as  his  opinion,  that  the  Floridas  ought  to  be  taken  by  the  United 
States.  He  added,  that  it  might  be  a  delicate  matter  for  the  Executive  to 
decide,  but,  if  the  President  approved  of  it,  he  had  only  to  give  a  hint  ta 
some  confidential  member  of  Congress,  say  Johnny  Ray,  and  he  would  do  i{, 
and  take  the  responsibility  of  it  on  himself." 

The  object  of  my  addressing  you  is,  to  obtain  a  statement  from  you. 
whether  such  a  letter  was,  or  was  not,  before  the  cabinet  during  its  delibe- 
ration, 

7 


50 

As  connected*  with  the  subject  of  my  inquiry,  I  must  ask  of  you  the  fa- 
vor to  furnish  me,  if  you  can  with  propriety,  with  a  copy  of  Mr.  Craw- 
ford's letter  to  you,  and  a  copy  of  your  answer.  I  make  the  request  on  the 
assumption  that  the  correspondence  can  contain  nothing  that  would  render 
it  improper  that  a  copy  6hould  be  placed  in  my  possession.  I  would  make 
the  request  of  Mr.  Crawford  himself,  instead  of  you,  had  I  not  declined 
all  communication  with  him  in  relation  to  the  subject  of  the  correspondence 
between  Gen.  Jackson  and  myself,  except  through  the  General,  through 
which  channel  no  opportunity  to  make  the  request  has  been  afForded  me, 


0. 

John  Q.  Adams  to  J.  C.  Calhoun. 

Washington,  l4lhJan uary,  1831. 

Sir:  I  received  this  morning  your  letter  of  the  12th  instant,  and,  in  giving 
to  it  an  immediate  and  explicit  answer,  I  trust  you  will  perceive  the  proprie- 
ty of  my  confining  myself  to  the  direct  object  of  your  inquiries. 

In  the  course  of  the  last  summer,  I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Crawford, 
referring  to  the  consultations  of  Mr.  Monroe  with  the  heads  of  the  Depart- 
ments, in  the  summer  of  1818,  upon  the  proceedings  of  General  Jackson  in 
Florida,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Seminole  war,  and  alluding  to  a  letter  from 
General  Jackson  to  Mr.  Monroe,  which  he  stated  to  have  been  produced  at 
one  of  those  meetings,  and  to  which  his  own  letter  appeared  to  attach  some 
importance. 

Mr.  Crawford  did  not  state  to  me  the  purpose  of  his  inquiries,  nor  was  I 
aware  that  any  previous  correspondence  in  relation  to  the  subject  had  taken 
place.  But  as  the  contents  of  his  letter  appeared  to  me  to  be  of  peculiar  in- 
terest to  the  character  of  Mr.  Monroe,  I  answered  him  that  I  had  no  recol- 
lection of  the  production  of  such  a  letter  as  that  t©  which  he  referred,  and 
requested  his  permission  to  communicate  his  letter  to  Mr.  Monroe  himself. 
To  this  answer  I  have  received  no  reply. 

Neither  the  letter  of  Mr.  Crawford,  nor  the  letter  book  containing  the 
copy  of  my  answer  to  it,  are  at  this  moment  in  my  possession,  having  left 
them  both  at  my  residence  in  Quincy.  The  letter  from  Mr.  Crawford  did 
not  purport  to  be  confidential;  but,  as  it  related  to  transactions  sacredly  con- 
fidential in  the  cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe,  I  have  not  thought  myself  at  liberty 
to  furnish  a  copy  of  it  without  his  permission,  even  to  Mr.  Monroe:  the 
same  principle  applies  to  your  request  for  a  copy;  but  I  will  immediately 
write  and  direct  a  copy  of  my  answer  to  be  made,  which,  when  receive^ 
shall  be  cheerfully  communicated  to  you. 

I  am,  with  respectful  consideration,  Sir, 
Your  obedient  servant, 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS 

John  C.  Calhoun,  Esq. 

P. 

Mr.  Crowninshield  to  Mr*.  Calhoun. 

Washington,  January  30,  1S31. 
Dear  Sir:  My  recollection  having  been  called  to  a  letter  received  from 
tire  Hon.  W.  H.  Crawford  in  July,  1830,  wherein  he  asks  my  attention  to 


51 

"circumstances  that  transpired  during  the  cabinet  deliberations  on  the 
events  of  the  Seminole  war,"  and  my  reply  thereto:  It  is  proper  for  me 
to  state,  that  I  answered  Mr.  Crawford  as  though  he  alluded  to  transac- 
tions which  took  place  while  I  was  in  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet;  but,  since 
my  arrival  here  this  session,  I  learn,  for  the  first  time,  that  the  cabinet 
meeting  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Crawford,  was  held  after  I  retired  from  the 
cabinet.*  I  left  Washington,  in  company  with  President  Monroe  and 
yourself,  for  Norfolk,  by  the  way  of  Annapolis,  on  the  28th  May,  1818. 
Now,  Sir,  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  one  word  of  what  was  said  or  done  at 
any  subsequent  meeting;  and  I  do  therefore  disclaim  and  say  that  my  let- 
ter in  answer  to  Mr.  Crawford  must  not  be  interpreted  so  as  to  affirm  or 
deny  any  cabinet  transactions  which  took  place  after  I  left  the  cabinet. 

It  is  difficult  for  me  to  account  how  I  could  have  blended  other  things,  so 

as  to  connect  them  with  events  of  which  I  could  know  nothing.     It  is  $ 

long  time  since  those  things  occurred,  and  memory  is  treacherous;  and  that, 

I  beg  you  to  believe,  is  the  only  reason  of  the  misapprehension  on  my  part, 

I  am,  with  high  consideration, 

,  Your  obedient  servant, 

B.  W.  CROWNINSHIELD. 

Hon.  J.  C.  Calhoun,  Vice  President. 

•  Mr.  Crowninshield  could-  not  have  been  present  at  any  cabinet  council  on  the  Seminole 
affair.  The  first  meeting  on  that  subject  took  place  on  the  15th  or  16th  of  July,  1818; 
Mr.jMonroe  baving?returned  on  the  14th ,  from  his  residence  in  Loudoun.  The  National  In- 
telligencer of  the  7th  July  announced  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Crowninshield  at  his  residence  in 
Massachusetts,  on  the  9th.  He  resigned  in  October  following,  without  having  returned  to 
Washington.  Nor  could  be  have  been  present  at  any  meeting  of  the  cabinet  on  the  subject 
of  the  capture  of  St.  Mark's  or  Pensacola,  in  which  I  was.  The  Intelligencer  of  the  29th 
of  May,  1818,  announces  the  departure  of  the  President,  (Mr.  Monroe,)  Mr.  Crowninshield, 
and  myself,  for  Norfolk,  before  information  was  received  at  Washington  of  either  St.  Mark's 
or  Pensacola.  The  two  former  returned  to  Washington.  I  proceeded  to  my  residence  in 
Carolina ,  and  did  not  return  to  Washington  until  the  9th  of  July ,  subsequent  to  Mr .  Crown- 
itoshield's  arrival  in  Massachusetts, 


Q. 

Mr.  Calhoun  to  Mr.  Crawford,  returning  his  letter  of  2d  October,  18 30 

Fort  Hill,  October  30,  1830. 

Sir:  The  last  mail  brought  me  your  letter  of  the  2d  instant,  but  post 
marked  the  23d,  which  I  herewith  return. 

I  cannot  consent  to  correspond  with  you  on  the  subject  to  which  it  refers. 
The  controversy  is  not  with  you,  but  General  Jackson.  You,  from  the  first, 
voluntarily  assumed  the  character  of  the  informer.  Under  that  character 
only  can  1  know  you,  which  of  course  precludes  all  communication  between 
us  in  relation  to  the  controversy,  except  through  General  Jackson.  Re- 
garding you  in  the  light  1  do,  you  may  rest  assured  that  no  abuse  on  your 
part,  however  coarse,  nor  charges  against  me,  however  false,  can  possibly 
prbvoke  me  to  raise  you  to  the  Jryel  of  a  principal,   by  substituting  you  in 


52 

the  place  of  General  Jackson  in  the  correspondence.  Should  you,  however, 
submit  to  the  degradation  of  the  position  which  you  have  thus  voluntarily 
taken,  and  will  send  this  or  any  other  statement  to  General  Jackson,  and 
induce  him  to  make  it  the  subject  of  any  further  communication  to  me,  as 
confirming  in  his  opinion  your  former  statement,  or  weakening  my  refuta- 
tion, I  will  be  prepared,  by  the  most  demonstrative  proof,  drawn  from  the 
paper  itself,  to  show  such  palpable  errors  in  your  present  statement  as  to 
destroy  all  confidence  in  your  assertions;  leaving  it,  however,  to  those  who 
have  the  best  means  of  judging  to  determine  whether  the  want  of  truth  be 
owing  to  a  decayed  memory  or  some  other  cause. 

Having  been  taught  by  the  past  the  necessity  of  taking  all  possible  pre- 
caution where  I  have  any  thing  to  do  with  you,  I  deem  it  prudent  not  to 
deprive  myself  of  the  advantage  which  your  paper  affords  me,  and  have  ac- 
cordingly taken  a  copy,  as  a  precautionary  measure. 

I  am,  &c. 

J.C.  CALiIOUN, 

W.  H.  Crawford,  Esq. 


I 


14  DAY  USE 

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